Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

[Just Released] Pop Makossa - The Invasive Dance Beat of Cameroon 1976​-​1984

Originally published on Analog Africa

What had happened to Bill Loko, the teenage super-star whose monster hit ‘Nen Lambo’ caused such a sensation? How did bandleader Eko Roosevelt go from Cameroonian prodigy to chief of an idyllic seaside village? And who exactly was Mystic Djim, the dreadlocked producer and mercurial hit-maker? etc., etc.

The Pop Makossa adventure started in 2009, when Analog Africa founder Samy Ben Redjeb first travelled to Cameroon to make an initial assessment of the country’s musical situation. He returned with enough tracks for an explosive compilation highlighting the period when funk and disco sounds began to infiltrate the Makossa style popular throughout Cameroon.

So why has it taken almost eight years from that first visit to the final compilation? From the very beginning, there were several mysteries hanging over Pop Makossa.

[Music Review] Reflection: The Confident First Steps of a Budding Afro-Soul Star

A review by Dibussi Tande

Artist: Daphne
EP: Reflection
Label: Stevens Music Entertainment
Genres: World, Afro-Soul, Reggae
Released: November 2014
Available on: iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play

In an era where anyone with a catchy hook and access to a voice processor can be promoted as the next big recording artist by a horde of eager promoters and fawning supporters, buying into the social media hype and hysteria surrounding the pre-release of new songs and albums is generally a recipe for disappointment. The budding Cameroonian urban music scene, for example, is replete with a dizzying number of songs and artists who promised more than they delivered and then faded into oblivion - or stubbornly stayed around to the dismay of the listening public. Once in a while, however, an artist comes along who actually lives up to the hype.

Blick Bassy Releases Second Solo Album With a Strong Brazilian Flavor

Cameroonian singer/songwriter Blick Bassy's much-awaited sophomore album, Hongo Calling, is now available worldwide. According to an early review, "This album takes the slave route from Cameroon to Brazil, picking up musical directions along the way... particularly aligning the Brazilian samba with music and rhythms that he grew up with, such as Assiko, which originates from the Bassa people in Cameroon." The album is available for download on itunes and amazon.

 

Click here for a review of Hongo Calling.

 

Lapiro de Mbanga: "Everybody to Kondengui Prison" (Music Video)

Listen to the lyrics of this song to understand why the Biya regime is determined to silence jailed protest singer Lapiro de Mbanga

In this fiery and no-holds-barred song released last year, Lapiro lashes out against the symbols of decay in today's Cameroon: A regime in power which has turned its back on all the nationalist slogans of the early years; generalized corruption that has effected every stratum of society ; an insolent and arrogant ruling elite brazenly parading symbols of ostentatious consumption (vulgar SUVs out of place on Cameroon's roads, huge castles amidst appalling squalor, some shown in the video);

Manu Dibango: A Musical Tribute to New Orleans

Manu Dibango «Manu Joue Sidney Bechet, Hommage à la Nouvelle Orléans » featuring Dany Doriz. Cristal Records, March 2007.

In his teenage years, black American jazz icons such as Louis Armstrong and Sydney Bechet had been a powerful motivating force in Manu's life. And in March 2007, the Cameroonian musician paid his own tribute to Bechet, the renowned composer and musician from New Orleans, with a pure jazz opus entitled "Manu Dibango joue Sydney Bechet." RFI

Cristal Records Presentation
Symbol of the World-Music since he travelled all around the world, as well for his music as for his humanitarian actions, Manu Dibango represents the emergence of the World-Music. He likes Gospel which reminds him his childhood and which is the ambassador of the Acid-jazz birth. Lately, his musical nomadism brought him to cooperate with classical orchestras such as the Metropole orchestra of Rotterdam, and more recently with the orchestra of Paris.

April 18, 1980: Bob Marley Celebrating Zimbabwe

On April 19, 1980, Bob Marley performed in front of 100,000 fans at the Rufaro Stadium in Harare. A day earlier, on April 18th, he sang Zimbabwe, which some have not hesitated to call "his most important single composition", during the actual independence ceremony. Here is a video of that event.

“Afrikan Guitarstrophy”: A Musical Journey Across Africa

Dibussi Tande

After a six-year break, US-based Cameroonian artist, Wanaku a.k.a The Tribal Monk has released his third album, Afrikan Guitarstrophy, in collaboration with his band, Sunplug’d.  In this album, Wanaku shuns the “World Music” genre with its the over-reliance on technology and heavy (in)fusion of Western pop sounds. Instead, he unapologetically uses the acoustic guitar as the main conduit for what he calls “Sweet Afrikan Kontry Muziki”. This is not “afro-pop” byany stretch of the imagination; it is afro beat in its pure and unadulterated state.

www.flickr.com More Flickr photos tagged with Sunplug'd

Richard Bona: The Maestro in Concert

Richard Bona performing his hit tune, Ekwa Mwato, at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, Holland.

Click here for my review of Bona's last album, Tiki.

Bona is featured on the cover of the September issue of Bass Player Magazine, which also has a full-page article on him.

Listen to Bona on PRI.

Music Review: Richard Bona – The Coming of Age of a Music Maestro

By Dibussi Tande

Richard Bona. Tiki. Universal Music France (Cameroon – Jazz). 2005. Official US Release: 9 May, 2006.

What happens when you mix the best of Francis Bebey and Manu Dibango, spice it up with a splash of Afro-Cuban Salsa and Brazilian Samba, and create soothing cocktail laced with the sweet languor of Jazz? You get Richard Bona’s fifth album, “Tiki”, a stunning 14-track multicultural musical odyssey put together in Brazil.