African jazz has lost another of its best-known icons.

Emmanuel N’Djoké Dibango, popularly known as Manu Dibango, was, like Hugh Masekela who died last year, a global star of Afro-jazz and funk.

The saxophonist Dibango leaves a huge legacy spanning more than 60 years of musical production that will continue to echo in global music. His brand of Afro-jazz drew enormously from makossa, a genre of popular music invented in the 1950s in Cameroon’s major economic and cultural centre, Douala. The music blended Afro-Cuban rumba and local musical forms such as assiko and ambasse bey with other styles such as the Congolese soukous.

Tellingly, one of Dibango’s most successful albums is titled Soul Makossa (1972), with a title song that has been repeatedly sampled (though most often unacknowledged) by stars ranging from Michael Jackson to Rihanna, Kanye West and A Tribe Called Quest. This one track alone has been referenced by so many globally famed artists that it has infused the pop culture zeitgeist from dance floors to catwalks at various times over the decades.

Dibango’s work has resonated with so many of his peers and audience because of its eclectic and ecumenical character. The richness of its multiple sources of inspirations across a wide range of traditions was only enhanced by Dibango’s deft ability to combine and recompose them into new symphonies and rhythms.

In an interview in 2018 for Quincy Jones’ Qwest TV, he spoke about his life and musical journey, moving between jazz, rumba, funk, and reggae, crossing paths with Sidney Bechet, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Bob Marley and Mohamed Ali along the way.

In Africa, Dibango’s appeal as an artist stemmed not only from his great talent, but also his simple ability to work with artists across a wide range of generations and backgrounds to advance African music and social causes on the continent. He famously led a humanitarian effort to raise money for the fight against famine in Ethiopia through a number of initiatives, including a charity record, Tam-Tam for Ethiopia (Drum for Ethiopia) in 1985.

Resilience

Dibango was an avid collaborator in African musical production, working with contemporaries like Cameroon’s Francis Bebey, the DRC’s Joseph Kabasele, Nigeria’s Fela Kuti and South Africa’s Masekela. He also produced music with notable figures among the younger generation like the DRC’s Papa Wemba, Mali’s Salif Keita and Senegal’s Youssou N’dour.

Personally, I have been drawn to how Dibango’s brand of music speaks to the political aesthetics of everyday life in authoritarian settings, much like Kuti’s. This includes a resilient capacity to laugh and be joyful, a determined refusal to capitulate to violent oppression. This is what Kuti described as “suffering and smiling”.

Dibango’s music was not directly about political commentary in its lyrics, except for a few songs like Ah! Freak Sans Fric (Africa Without Money). The song bemoaned a continent impoverished despite its natural wealth. But in its poetry of everyday life on the continent, Dibango’s music addressed the aesthetic, ethical, political, economic, material and even the psychological states of Africa in the wake of the multiple crises that people have had to live through.

Political hostility

Born in 1933, Dibango left Cameroon in his teens to undertake high school studies in Paris. From this moment on, his life as a world journeyman and musical joy maker began. He aptly defined himself as a “Negropolitan”, an African of the world.

He never really returned to Cameroon. His occasional efforts to initiate cultural projects to promote music in the country were frequently frustrated by the political establishment.

As Francis Nyamnjoh and Jude Fokwang, two notable Cameroonian anthropologists, wrote in their seminal study of Cameroonian music and the repressive order in the country, Manu Dibango’s genre of makossa brought world fame to Cameroon’s popular music,but his efforts to win recognition for music as art and musicians as artists met with repeated frustrations by politicians.

There was therefore no love lost between the musician and the authorities in the country of his birth. No surprise, then, that there was no credible public statement from either the president of Cameroon, Paul Biya, or from the country’s Ministry of Culture in the days after the announcement of the death of this cultural icon.

No leading national authority had called for the public to honour Manu Dibango’s memory and to recognise his cultural contributions to uplifting the national spirit of joy and resilience in the face of everyday hardships that Cameroonians endure.

This stands in stark contrast to the global outpouring of grief and celebration of this cultural genius at the news of his demise. Dibango was an object of “Cameroonian and African pride”, as N’dour puts it.

Dibango gave his life’s work to the entire continent of Africa and the rest of the world, producing soul-reaching musical sensations with mind-boggling energy in his music. It is perhaps only just that it is the entire continent and the rest of the world that have been quick to sense his demise as our collective loss.

Dibango passed away in Paris after contracting COVID-19. He was 86 years old.

Culled from The Conversation

Congolese music star Aurlus Mabélé has died in hospital in France’s capital Paris, aged 67.

Posts on social media from friends and relatives say he died of coronavirus but this is not confirmed.

His fans called him the king of soukous – a high-tempo Congolese dance music popular across Africa.

His daughter, French singer Liza Monet, tweeted on Thursday that her father had died of coronavirus. “I am inconsolable” she wrote.

Fellow member of the supergroup Loketo, Mav Cacharel, also said on Facebook that he had died of coronavirus.

His manager, Jimmy Ouetenou, however, told BBC Afrique that it was not confirmed he died of coronavirus and that he had long-term health problems.

He was admitted to hospital on Thursday and died on the same day.

Mabélé, whose real name is Aurélien Miatsonama, was from Congo-Brazzaville and moved to France in the 1980s.

His hits include the track Embargo.

Mr Ouetenou said talks were already underway with the Congolese government for him to be buried in his home country.

In the meantime, his coffin will be placed in a burial vault until travel restrictions due to coronavirus are lifted, reports BBC Afrique’s Rose-Marie Bouboutou.

Mabélé took soukous around the world

Under his real name Aurélien Miatshonama, Mabélé founded Les Ndimbola Lokole with his friends in Brazzaville and recorded some of the hottest hits that moved the African continent in the 1970s, such as Embargo, Zebola and Waka Waka.

Later, he moved to Paris where he founded another band, Loketo, meaning “hips” in Lingala – the language of most soukous songs, which is widely spoken in western DR Congo and Congo-Brazzaville.

With more than 10 million albums sold over a 30-years of musical career, Aurlus Mabélé took soukous beyond Africa, around the world.

Source: BBC

 86 year old mega star Manu Dibango the author of “Soul Makossa” has tested positive for the Coronavirus. However, according to his manager, the artist is recovering and is not in any danger.

In France, where the Cameroonian superstar lives, the Coronavirus epidemic has already caused the death of 175 people.

French public health officials also did announce that the European nation now has 7730 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Cameroon Prime Minister and Head of Government, Dion Ngute who is 65 years old has gotten married again and this time around to a lady from the Beti ruling clan. Cameroon Concord News has not been able to confirm if it is his fifth or sixth wife.

Polygamy forms part of his Oroko culture and is legal in Cameroon particularly when one is a senior government official with access to free money from the state. Ngute, a traditional chief from the Ndian constituency has a sea of children.

The premier reportedly formalized his relationship with one of his many fiancés by having a private traditional ceremony at the prime minister’s Lake Side residence in Yaoundé.

Bodo Nelly hails from the same tribe as Cameroon’s 87 year old leader, President Paul Biya and has numerous academic qualifications.

Bodo Nelly and Sister

We gathered that none of Mr. Dion Ngute’s other wives were on hand to help him marry Bodo Nelly.

Ngute’s private home in Yaoundé is currently getting a multi million upgrade that included four new double-storey thatch rondavels for his wives and children.

A source at the prime minister’s office hinted Cameroon Concord News that for official events, Dion Ngute will have to take one wife on a rotating basis to serve as the prime minister’s favorite lady.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Rita Akana in Yaounde

Valentine’s Day is celebrated throughout the world as a time for love and romance. This year, the Irish Republic witnessed an African touch into the normal desire to sell cards, flowers and chocolates as members of the Swords Centre, African Chaplaincy in the Archdiocese of Dublin made history by staging one of the most colorful St Valentine’s Day party ever.

Speaking during the event that was hosted at the Royal Plazza Chinese Restaurant, the chairman of the Catholic Men Organization Swords Centre, Sir Dr Denis Chima observed that historians have revealed much about St Valentine considered the patron saint of love and courting couples.

Sir Dr Denis Chima furthered that Valentine lived in the third century and was executed for his Christian beliefs and for performing illegal wedding ceremonies for soldiers that angered the authorities because married men did not have to go to war.

For her part, the president of the Catholic Women Organization Swords Centre, Lady Sabrina Ada pointed out that there should be more to love and marriage than just a practical affair for couples to pair off to increase their wealth and status.

Romantic love thrived among couples who attended the celebration which ended with a memorable exchange of gifts between the Catholic Men Organization and the Catholic Women Organization.

By Soter Agbaw-Ebai

Bikutsi, a dance celebrating sexuality and relationships, has taken centre stage across Cameroon in the past three decades.

The form arose in patriarchal communities where women were forbidden “to raise their voices in public”, Cameroonian ethnomusicologist Jean Maurice Noah wrote in his book on the subject.

Olivia Beyene, Bikutsi singer said: “That’s the soppy, frilly side, that’s what it is. It’s a bit seductive too, it’s part of bikutsi, especially on stage and it’s specific to Cameroon, it’s specific to the Cameroon bikutsi show.”

An artistic director says Bikutsi is hyper erotic, sensual and expresses what is basic. The, ground, the earth, the essence and at the end of the day, and at the end of all that we have done, there is what is essential to man, to human being, a rapprochement between man and woman.

Olivia adds: “It’s kind of popular. In Cameroon the population likes it, the population likes the perverse side, that’s what attracts attention. It’s just to attract attention and to play to the gallery. But if not, behind all this, there is always a message to convey.”

Bikutsi was born in pre-colonial times in the fang, bulu and beti ethnic areas of central and southern Cameroon, where women would gather together after a hard day’s work, without the men, to sing and dance of joys, sorrows and frustrations.

In this era of freedom, some women expressed, the pain of living next to a violent husband, while others shared the secrets of a successful marriage with the younger ones.

Source: France 24

There is an acute shortage of native doctors today in the country’s two English-speaking regions of the country due to the ongoing civil war that is tearing the country apart.

Most native doctors, who used to say they could even prevent thunder from striking, have all vanished ever since the civil war broke out.

Native doctors have been targeted by both government forces and Amba fighters for different reasons.

Government troops accuse them of preparing the amulets, known as Odeshi, which are supposedly protecting the fighters against the military’s superior fire power.

Amba boys, for their part, have been targeting these doctors whose ability to protect anybody against death has not been tested.

Some Amba fighters have even had to take the native doctors with them to their jungle for them to spend time on practices that can protect them against bullets.

But some of the native doctors have been killed by bullets during fierce confrontations between the warring factions. Strangely, they could not protect themselves.

Speaking to a native doctor from Kumba who has become an IDP in Douala in East Cameroon, he said that the fighting had ruined his business.

Asked why he had to leave Kumba due to the fighting, he said bullets did not need a visa to reach anybody, adding that it would be foolhardy for anyone to stand in the way of a roaring bullet.

He added that most of his work tools had been ruined due to the fighting; stressing that living in East Cameroon was like living in Hell as he could not speak French.

He said he was praying for the fighting to end, adding that he had embraced God and would be mixing western religion and his native medicine to produce better results.

He urged his colleagues who had fled to Nigeria to return home so that they could work together to bring about peace in the war-torn country.

He pointed out that poverty was stalking him like a stubborn shadow since he had lost his clients and constituting a new client base in East Cameroon was indeed challenging.

He stressed that there were many mentally-ill people today in the two English-speaking regions of the country because of the war, adding that if the war had stopped, he and his colleagues could have helped to stabilize those who have been mentally and psychologically scarred by the war.

He opined that more native doctors would be required, as many had died due to poverty and lost business opportunities.

He indicated that there was a lot of work for new native doctors, especially those who could stand the pressure and stress of dealing with mentally-ill persons.

By Joachim Arrey

Renowned Cameroonian artist Nguea La Route who had a hip disarticulation operation, meaning they removed her left leg up to and including the hip joint on October 4, 2019, has gotten another amputation on her right leg. The operation took place at the Douala General Hospital on the night of Wednesday, January 15, 2020.

Mama Nguea entered the surgery around 11pm Wednesday and came out shortly after 3 a.m. Local media reported that Nguea La Route had a long session in the intensive care unit.

The artist, whose condition seemed stabilized after the first operation, had left Laquintinie hospital several weeks ago. Things however took a dramatic u turn and she was rushed to the General Hospital where a second amputation took place.

Cameroon Concord News understands a charity concert was organized in Douala on December 2, 2019 in support of the artist. The free concert sponsored by Nicole Mara brought together several legends including Ben Decca, Toto Guillaume, Franco and Hobscur.

The musicians took popular songs from Mama Nguea that celebrated life and raised 400,000 CFA francs which was handed over to her.

By Rita Akana

Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have agreed to give up their royal titles and stop receiving public funds as part of a settlement with the Queen that lets them spend more private time in Canada.

The announcement from Buckingham Palace on Saturday follows more than a week of intense private talks aimed at managing the fallout of the couple’s shock decision to give up front-line royal duties.

“Following many months of conversations and more recent discussions, I am pleased that together we have found a constructive and supportive way forward for my grandson and his family,” Queen Elizabeth II said in a statement.

“I recognise the challenges they have experienced as a result of intense scrutiny over the last two years and support their wish for a more independent life.”

Her comments referred to battles with the media that prompted Harry and Meghan — known until now as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — to sue several newspapers over intrusions into their private lives.

A separate statement attributed to Buckingham Palace said “the Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family”.

HRH is the acronym for Her Royal Highness.

“As agreed in this new arrangement, they understand that they are required to step back from Royal duties, including official military appointments. They will no longer receive public funds for Royal duties,” the statement said.

The settlement added that the two will also repay £2.4 million ($3.1 million) of taxpayer’s money spent on renovating their Frogmore Cottage home near Windsor Castle.

– ‘Progressive new role’ –

The Palace added that it would not comment on who ends up paying for their security detail in Canada — an issue of intense public debate.

It also failed to mention whether the couple would be allowed to benefit financially from future royalties and franchise fees.

Harry and Meghan are seeking to register the “Sussex Royal” brand as a global trademark for their future enterprises.

The couple are dedicated to environmental causes and are looking to develop their charitable foundation as part of a “progressive” new role.

The queen’s announcement is her second on the royal crisis — dubbed Megxit in honour of Britain’s painful battle over Brexit — ahead of Harry and Meghan’s effective resignation on March 8.

“We have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution,” the couple said at the time.

“We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America.” Meghan then jetted back to Canada and is now their with their son Archie.

Their announcement caught the royal family by surprise and created a media sensation in both Britain and the wider world.

Their treatment by London’s hard-hitting tabloid press and their personal future — as well as questions about longstanding royal traditions — have turned into daily front-page news.

Media reports said Harry would probably join Meghan and Archie on the west coast of Canada this coming week.

Source: AFP

Starting out, Indian singer Prateek Kuhad gave himself one year to make it. He is still no stranger to self-doubt — but now even Barack Obama is a fan of his heartbreak-inspired songs.

The 29-year-old was enjoying a quiet New Year’s Eve at his family home in New Delhi when he received a message saying: “This is big.”

Former US president Obama had included Kuhad’s wistful hit “cold/mess” in his annual list of favourite music, alongside the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce and Lizzo.

“It’s cool,” Kuhad told AFP, adding that being mentioned in Obama’s viral Twitter and Instagram posts was still “overwhelming”.

“He is one of the few personalities in our generation who has got a fairly clean image, is one of the good presidents that the world has seen,” he said.

“He listens to Big Thief. I love them, but they’re not a really big band. It clearly looks like Obama scouts his music well.”

Kuhad is not sure how Obama first heard his music but links it to his 2019 tour across North America and Europe that helped him break through internationally, but tested his resolve.

“I almost hated performing when I started doing it. I’m getting used to it only now,” he said.

He describes the track picked by the ex-president as a “straight-up heartbreak song”, saying he accepts that writing about romance, longing and the complications of love has helped him find fame.

“People would say this is all I can write about. You question yourself, and I did have such a moment in mid-2019. But then I realised I loved what I do,” he said.

– ‘Ready to quit’ –

Kuhad had a comfortable upbringing in the northern Indian desert city of Jaipur before studying maths and economics at New York University.

When he decided to take up music professionally in 2013, he struggled while other paths beckoned.

“I gave myself a year. I was ready to quit — I knew I could either land a job or study further if my music career didn’t take off,” he said.

Since then he has released four well-received albums, including “cold/mess”, named after the song that caught Obama’s attention.

He thinks being an artist in the digital age boosted his chances of reaching a wider, non-Indian audience with a track that is “pretty much an alternative, pop English song”.

Not being dependent on record-label executives has helped him break into an industry where “there have been only a certain kind of pop stars, and primarily white people”.

Kuhad has already built up a solid following and gets frequent requests for selfies in public, but he knows his global visibility has been given an enormous boost by Obama.

The media frenzy following the end-of-year list means the singer now has to rethink his 2020 plans.

As he decides his next steps, he’ll be listening to British pop veteran Cliff Richard, Pakistan’s Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, or Mozart.

Kuhad — who describes himself as cynical, cautious and risk-averse — said the personal experiences that inspire his songwriting, as well as “skills, hard work and discipline”, have got him where he is today.

“In 2014, I used a platform which allowed me to send emails to myself in the future.

“A day after Obama’s list came out, I got a mail which I had written then that said I should quit if I wasn’t successful by now,” Kuhad said, laughing.

“I think I’m doing okay.”

Source: AFP