I Love Bikutsi, but I Love Makossa Too!

The two major musical styles of Cameroun are bikutsi, centered around the capital city Yaoundé, and makossa, from the coastal metropolis Douala. I've really been getting into bikutsi lately, and posting some of it here, but I love me some makossa also!

Makossa arose in the early 20th century with the intersection of the rhythms of the local Douala people and foreign sounds brought in by merchant marines, and mutated into a modern dance style by the '60s. Notable for its distinctive beat, the sound got a big boost with the success of Camerounian musician Manu Dibango and his 1972 international hit, "Soul Makossa," which ironically, wasn't makossa at all! Jean-Victor Nkolo writes in the 1994 book World Music: The Rough Guide:

...the fact remains that, with the exception of his bold venture (this is not his territory, say purists) into bikutsi with ' 'Mouvement Ewondo" on his Seventies album, and maybe another exception, "Idiba" (composed by Francis Bebey), Dibango, who is primarily a jazz musician, has never been the cup of tea of Cameroon's DJs, nor popular in the drinking parlours, nor has he cut any kind of figure in the  clubs or on the dance floors.  

Cameroonians generally consider "Soul Makossa" to be a hybrid - funky music with lashings of brass and a relatively strange rhythm that's good for signature tunes and other uses abroad, but is rarely played at home - and certainly not makossa. Anyone who listens will have difficulty finding any makossa in Cameroon that has a beat even close to that of "Soul Makossa"- or vice versa! The only "makossa" thing about the hugely successful track is the name, and Cameroonians are always lost when they have to dance to it. But while not a single Dibango track has been a dance success in Cameroon, his career has followed a very different path abroad, where he has been a figure of real importance...

The '80s were the high tide of makossa, with a torrent of dance hits that swept Africa. Moni Bilé, Guy Lobé and Toto Guillaume are standouts of the period, but many more musicians made their mark. These slick, if somewhat formulaic productions, many from the stable of producer Alhaji Touré, were distinctive, often utilizing string sections to good effect, a rarity in African music. The good times couldn't last, though, and the '90s saw makossa somewhat eclipsed by the more rough-hewn bikutsi style.

Today's musical selection, the 1987 compilation LP Africa Oumba No. 1 (Blue Silver 8260), highlights music from an earlier makossa era - 1977 to be precise. The sound here is a little more relaxed but no less creative, and is downright addictive. All of the tunes here were originally released on 45s and LPs on the BBZ Productions label out of Paris.

Contributing the most to this compilation is bassist Jean-Karl Dikoto Mandengue, who cut a wide swath in the music scene of Cameroun and has been renowned internationally. He was born in Douala in 1948 and was a session musician in France by the '60s, joining the legendary London Afro-rock band Osibisa in 1973. His solo makossa recordings were mainly made in the '70s and early '80s, but lately he's made a comeback, and has long served as a mentor and inspiration to a younger generation of Camerounian musicians:

Jean Mandengue - Muna Munengue

A different version of "Muna Munengue" can be heard on this earlier Likembe post.

Ekambi Brillant was also born in 1948 near Douala, and in 1971 joined a local band called Les Cracks. Taking first place in a musical contest opened the way for his first single, "Djongele La N'Dolo." His first LP, Africa Oumba, was released in 1975, and he continued to record through the '80s.

Ekambi Brillant - Ngal'a Tanda

Abêti Masikini, who was not from Cameroun but from the Congo, was the subject of an earlier Likembe post.

Abêti - Bi Suivra Suivra

Jean Mandengue - Na Bolane Oa Nje

Ekambi Brillant - Ashiko Edingue

Jean Mandengue - O Danga Londo O Bia

Ekambi Brillant - Awolo

Abêti - Ngblimbo

Pierre "Didy" Tchakounté was born in 1950 in Douala, although his roots are farther north in the Bamileke country of Cameroun. Drawing on those influences he made a series of funky 45s in the '70s that were not really makossa per se but definitely established him as a force in the Camerounian music scene. In the '90s he became an officer in the French professional music associations SACEM and ADAMI. He continues to record and perform.

Pierre "Didy" Tchakounté - Meguela

Jean Mandengue - Mathilde

Ekambi Brillant - Nyambe

Jean Mandengue - Saturday Afternoon

Download Africa Oumba No. 1 as a zipped file here.

King Sunny Adé: The Message

King Sunny Adé's 1981 LP Juju Music (Island ILPS 9712) was a revelation for many outside of Nigeria, making him a global superstar, making way for other African musicians and opening the floodgates for the World Music™ craze (or hype, or gimmick) to come.

By the time Juju Music was released, Adé had been recording for fifteen years. His early outings, with the Green Spots Band, were short, punchy compositions meant for the 7" 45 format. As LP records became the medium of choice in Nigeria, and the Green Spots mutated into the African Beats, the music stretched out, becoming languid medleys taking up whole sides of albums.

French producer Martin Meissonnier, in packaging Juju Music for the world market, made the shrewd move of chopping the medleys into individual compositions and adding a few subtle production tricks, but avoiding the "crossover" trap and leaving the sound basically as it had been heard in Nigeria. It's an excellent introduction to King Sunny Adé's sound, and jùjú music in general, and is considered a classic.

Those who have heard Juju Music will find much of The Message (Sunny Alade Records SALPS 25) familiar. Parts of it were the basis for two songs on the former album, "Ma Jaiye Oni" and "365 Is My Number/The Message." It's one of my favorite Sunny Adé records. Enjoy!

King Sunny Adé & his African Beats - Baba Orun A Mbe O / Igbala Ni Mofe

King Sunny Adé & his African Beats - Oro Dugbe Dugbe / Ko S'agbe Mo Loko / Mo Beru Oruko T'aiye Nje

King Sunny Adé & his African Beats - Ma J'aiye Oni

King Sunny Adé & his African Beats - Alhaji Bode Osinusi / Alhaji Rasaq Ogbara

Download The Message as a zipped file here.

King Sunny Adé: Juju Music of the '80s

Kudos to the blog Music Republic for posting the great 1981 King Sunny Adé LP Check "E" (Sunny Alade Records SALPS 26). I've been inspired in turn, and  I will be posting two more 1981 offerings from Sunny (he was very prolific - he released five albums in 1981 alone!)

Today's offering is Juju Music in the '80s (Sunny Alade SALPS 24), and in a few days I will post The Message (Sunny Alade SALPS 25).

These albums were released only in Nigeria, right before the monumental Juju Music (Island ILPS 9712). That was Sunny's first international release, which put jùjú music on the map and launched his career as a world superstar. Unlike that album, which was tailored somewhat for global tastes (but still great), this one sticks to the Nigerian convention of long jams that fill each side of an LP record. Enjoy!

King Sunny Adé & his African Beats - Osupa Mi Tole / Bi Ko Seni Akii Gbon / Ibi Lero Siwa / Ota Ile Pada Lehin Mi

King Sunny Adé & his African Beats - Ara Nfu Mi / Oro Fi Sibe / T'Oluwa Ni O Se / Alhaji Abud U Amoo (Shola Motors)

Download Juju Music in the '80s as a zipped file here.

Etoundi Aloa's Bikutsi

The "Patriarch of Bikutsi," Etoundi Aloa Javis, joined his ancestors on November 6, 2017. Shortly before his death he was honored at the annual "Festi-Bikutsi" celebration in Yaoundé, Cameroun.

I've been unable to find out much about Mr. Aloa, who recorded a number of albums and singles in the '70s and '80s, under his own name and as Javis & les Idoles. His early-'80s LP, Ma Yem Ya? (Africa Oumba AOLP 015), is an example of bikutsi at its best. Enjoy!

Aloa Javis - Ma Yem Ya?

Aloa Javis - Mengabo Wo Dze

Aloa Javis - Dze Ene Nkenga

Aloa Javis - Dze Ya Ye Mayi

Aloa Javis - Ezilngan

Download Ma Yem Ya? as a zipped file here. Note: The cover misspells Mr. Aloa's surname as "Alao," but it is spelled correctly on the record label. Likewise, sides A and B are reversed on the sleeve.

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!

Bikutsi Traditions

Making their first appearance here at Likembe are Les Veterans out of Cameroun, leading practitioners in the '80s of the rootsy, gritty bikutsi style.

The style of music most associated with Cameroun is the cosmpolitan makossa sound of the port city of Douala. But the country has a multiplicity of languages, cultures and religious traditions, so much so that it is often called "Africa in miniature." Bikutsi is the style most associated with the Béti peoples around the capital city of Yaoundé. Jean-Victor Nkolo discsusses the origins and history of bikutsi at some length in a chapter of the 1994 book World Music: The Rough Guide, to which I would refer you. Here's a representative passage, though:

...Originally, bikutsi was a blood-stirring war rhythm - the music of vengeance and summoning to arms, sounding through the forest. It used rattles and drum and the njang xylophone or balafon. Then, for decades, if not centuries, Beti women tricked the Christian church, as well as their own men, by singing in the Beti tongue and by using complex slang phrases reserved for women. While clapping out the same rapid-fire rhythm, they sang about the trials and tribulations of everyday life; they discussed sexuality, both theirs and their men's; and they talked about sexual fantasies and taboos. In the middle of the song, a woman would start a chorus leading to a frenzied dance of rhythmic foot-stamping and harmonious shaking of the shoulders, the back and the bottorn in that order: shoulders-back-bottom-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap. The whole thing was accompanied by strident screams and
whistles. These, in short, are the origins of bikutsi. The bellicose themes are no longer significant, but many women still perform the old folk dances, across the sprawling hills of Yaoundé city and beyond to the south....

When bikutsi was modernized, electric guitars replicated the melodic patterns of the balafons. Nkolo credits the creation of the "modern" bikutsi style in the '60s and '70s to Messi Me Nkonda Martin of the very influential band Los Camaroes (their 1979 LP Ressurection Los Vol. 1 has recently been reissued and is highly recommended!). The genre has continued to evolve. Briefly making a splash in the late '80s and early '90s were Les Têtes Brulées, who were the beneficiaries of a fair amount of publicity in the "World Music" scene but quickly disappeared. Other practitioners have been Chantal Ayissi, Sala Bekono, Mbarga Soukous and the controversial Katino Ateba. Wherever the music has gone, it's remained true to its gritty, unrestrained roots.

True to their name, I believe Les Veterans were associated with the Camerounian military in some capacity or other. They flourished in the 1980s but I don't know if they're still active. I'm aware of five albums they recorded and several 45s. This recording, 1986's Traditions (Ebobolo-Fia TC 010), has not been made available online before now to my knowledge. Enjoy!

Les Vétérans - Marie Loulou

Les Vétérans - Awu A Boya Abe

Les Vétérans - Osun

Les Vétérans - Man Kalba

Les Vétérans - Maboya E He

Les Vétérans - Osun (Instrumental)

Download Traditions as a zipped file here.

Sparkling Soukous

I love this album cover! I love the music on the album!

The group "Le Peuple" had its origins in a split from the legendary Bantous de la Capitale, the foremost musical congregation on the Brazzaville side of the Congo River. Fronted at first by the vocalists Célestin Kouka, Pamelo Mounk'a, and Kosmos Moutouari (or "Trio Ce.Pa.Kos."), the group, led by Célestin Kouka, soldiered on after Pamelo and Kosmos departed for solo careers. Le Peuple disbanded in 1985. This album, Bimbeni (Production Le Vaudou VAU 008), is from the post-Ce.Pa.Kos. period, sometime in the early '80s. Enjoy!

Le Peuple - Bimbeni

Le Peuple - Banque Ya Ba Soucis

Le Peuple - Zala Serieux

Le Peuple - Presence

Download Bimbeni as a zipped file here.

Eclectic Diva

Elizabeth Finant, better known as Abeti Masikini, or just "Abeti," was a pioneer of the Congolese music scene - one of the first female singers there to really make an impact. She was born on November 9, 1954, in present-day Kisangani to a civil servant who, as a supporter of first Congolese President Patrice Lumumba, was murdered in 1961 during the unrest that followed Independence.

While Abeti sang in the Catholic Church as a child, and performed in clubs and competitions, her career received a jump-start in 1971 when she made the acquaintance of the Togolese producer Gérard Akueson. He became her life-companion and father of her children and produced all of her records. Her first release, 1973's Pierre Cardin Présente Abeti (Disques Pierre Cardin PC 93.501) was in the "contemporary" style popularized by singers like Miriam Makeba and Togo's Bella Bellow. Which is maybe not surprisng given that Akueson was also Bellow's producer.

A steady stream of releases followed, which placed Abeti at the pinnacle of the Kinshasa music scene, rivalled only by M'Pongo Love and M'Bilia Bel for the title of Congo's top female vocalist. Over the years she showed an eclectic willingness to wander outside the standard Congolese rumba/soukous paradigm, drawing on influences far and wide to forge her unique sound. An excellent example is the late-'80s recording Je Suis Faché (Bade Stars Music AM 033), which draws on techno and the zouk style out of the French Caribbean, which was then sweeping Africa and the world. This was probably her biggest hit ever and I'm happy to present it here by request.

Abeti died of cancer in France on September 28, 1994.

Abeti - Je Suis Faché

Abeti - Lolo

Abeti - Viens Mon Amour

Abeti - Piege Ya Bolingo

Download Je Suis Faché as a zipped file here.

A Couple More Rochereaus

As promised in an earlier post, here are Volumes 5 and 6 of the series Rochereau Vols. 1-8, released by Disco Stock in Abidjan in 1982. The first four, Rochereau à Abidjan, did not get a lot of circulation outside of West Africa, but the last four were licensed by the African Record Centre in Brooklyn.

Congo's great Tabu Ley, nicknamed "Rochereau," is showcased to great effect in these wonderful albums. The no-frills production brings the voices to the fore while leaving plenty of room for the (uncredited!) backup musicians to display their chops. And some of the most-loved songs in Tabu Ley's repertoire - "On a Raconte," "Mazé" and "Sorozo" - are included.

On listening to these recordings, it struck me that the rhythm guitar ostinato on "On a Raconté," probably recorded in '81 or ''82, sounded awfully familiar. Compare it to 1985's "Haleluya" by Orchestra Simba Wanyika from Tanzania/Kenya. Was the later recording inspired by the first? Or is this a case of parallel evolution? The rhythm guitarist on "Haleluya" is probably George Peter Kinyonga, but who plays on "On a Raconté?" The liner notes give us no clue. Can someone out there enlighten us?

First up, here is Rochereau Vol. 5: Jalousie Mal Placée (Star Musique SMP 6005):

Tabu Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International - Jalousie Mal Placée

Tabu Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International - On a Raconté

Tabu Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International - Mela

Tabu Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International - Maika

Go here to download Jalousie Mal Placée as a zipped file.

And here is Rochereau Vol. 6: Mazé (Star Musique SMP 6006):

Tabu Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International - Mazé

Tabu Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International - M. Malonga

Tabu Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International - N'Gawali

Tabu Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International - Sorozo

Download Mazé as a zipped file here.

Bonne Année!

Happy New Year! Bonne Année! And here with us to celebrate the new year are Lokassa Ya M'Bongo, Sam Mangwana and the African All Stars with an LP appropriately entitled Bonne Année (Star Musique SMP 6039, 1983).

This album was recorded in Abidjan where the African All Stars were at the peak of their powers, creating a new iteration of Congolese rumba that would soon sweep the continent. All the gang is here - Lokassa on rhythm guitar, Dizzy Mandjeku on lead, Ringo Moya on percussion, ably fronted by the great Sam Mangwana on lead vocals, with Nayanka Bell and Chantal Taiba on backup.

Unfortunately, like a lot of these African Record Centre productions, the sound quality is not exactly ideal. I got it factory-sealed many years ago, but I suspect it was produced from a second- or third-generation master tape. I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. Bonne Année!

Lokassa Ya M'Bongo - Issa

Lokassa Ya M'Bongo - Dodo

Lokassa Ya M'Bongo - Bonne Année 

Download Bonne Anné as a zipped file here.