The Scandalous "K-Tino"

Before last week I'd heard of Camerounian chanteuse Catherine Edoa Ngoa, aka Kotino Ateba, aka "K-Tino," and her notorious sexually-charged hits. I never actually listened to her music, though, until I did research into my previous post, "Bikutsi Traditions."

A profile on the internet describes K-Tino's career arc this way:

...In the early 90s a woman named Katino Ateba emerged into the bikutsi scene with hits that took bikutsi fans by surprise. The orchestration was so good while the erotic lyrics expressed women’s fantasies. She broke all taboos and immediately knew success on the dancefloors around the country. By the number and regularity of her productions K-Tino is no doubt the Queen of bikutsi. She came into music with a powerful message that bikutsi is first of all the woman’s music. Her lyrics have sometimes been so intimidating to the sexual prowess of men that her fans have grown by millions among the women who see her as a symbol of their emancipation and empowerment. Totally fearless, K-Tino has become a myth, with her daughter K-Wash following her path to success.

K-Tino started singing in Chacal and Escalier Bar under the wings of the famous Epeme Theodore aka Zanzibar. She later joined the Band “Les Zombies de la Capitale” and set out for a solo career with the encouragements of the bikutsi patriarch Ange Ebogo Emerent. She performed so well that she became a crowd puller at Chalet situated in Mvan Yaounde. K-Tino has released several albums and her bikutsi is just irresistible, her performances are memorable. Her success has inspired so many young female bikutsi artists....

The event that really put K-Tino on the map, though, was her early-'90s smash "Ascenseur" ("The Lift"), a celebration of female sexuality that scandalized proper Camerounian society. Jean Victor Nkolo describes its impact in a chapter of the 1994 book World Music: The Rough Guide:

...Thanks to the rule of President Paul Biya - himself a Bulu Beti and a great bikutsi aficionado and dancer - the style has flourished on the otherwise heavily censored state-run radio and TV. A story that hit the drinking parlours of Yaoundé a couple of years back - part-joke, part-rumour - went like this: the archbishop of Douala, Monseigneur Jean Zoa, goes to the president's palace, hoping to get the latest bikutsi song banned. The piece in question was 'The Lift," in the Ewondo language. It comes from the raunchy Catherine Ateba, known as Katino Ateba, a young woman who fears no man, not even an archbishop.

According to the story, as the archbishop entered the president's living room to ask for the banning of "The Lift", he heard Biya himself asking his wife to "play that song again". The Monseigneur had to change his tune and his subject, throwing in the towel before uttering a word. Katino Ateba's songs are indeed crude, pornographic and anticlerical. But such themes are the essential thrust of bikutsi, a style whose origins go far back...

The lyrics themselves, barely disguised by euphemism, leave little to the imagination:

Action 69!
The lift, every male's secret
I like men who are not fools
Those who know how to press my sensitive button
The lift, that's every male's secret
I like a man who is no fool
I like a man who will suck me downstairs
I like a man who will suck me upsairs too
I like men who sin on earth
I like men who sin in heaven too
Even the parish priest loves that
Instead of giving me a private service
He comes home to sin downstairs
And I like the priest who sins upsairs too
And his mass will not be sad as a funeral ceremony
Because every male is a boss
Even in his pyjamas
But only when he's strong and big
With his prick as solid as a man's gun
Solid as a church's big candle
And I'll lick him up and down
And then, and only then, I'll ask him
To press the button in my lift
Every male's secret..

You can understand why the audience in the video above is going wild! (Translation courtesy of Jean Victor Nkolo).

Several years ago K-Tino renounced her salacious subject matter and founded a church in Libreville, Gabon, where she has a residence. Recently, though, she's made a return to form with a new naughty song, "Watafufu." As a report put it, "Yes, pastor K-Tino is singing again using dirty words!"

Enjoy more music by this brave, talented and charismatic lady!