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Sally Nyolo
© Cecilia Garroni Parisi

Studio Cameroon


Studio Cameroon Sally Nyolo’s four solo albums had familiarised us with her rapid-fire vocals she drenches in the bikutsi music from her native south Cameroon. “Bikut-si” is part of the musical traditions of the Beti people and literally means to beat the ground repeatedly. Its pounding 6/8 rhythm leads to an overpowering and hypnotic trance that swept Cameroon in the Nineties. But on this album it is a guitar-backed style which soothes thanks to the soft vocals of both Nyolo and her numerous friends. On the rich compilation she has unburied 14 songs and as many unsung talents to provide a new window into the musical wealth of the central African nation.

Nyolo embarked on “Studio Cameroon” back in 1998. Having established herself in Europe thanks to her solo albums “Tribu”, “Multiculti”, “Beti” and “Zaïone”, local artists saw her as a catalyst for a traditional music that had suffered terribly from the growing use of the synthesiser and rhythm box. “They asked me to use the lessons I had learnt in Paris to resurrect rural music at home,” she explained in a December interview in the French capital. “I didn’t have much money but a little can go a long way at home.” Nyolo went about building a tin-roofed recording studio on Mount Febe, a hill that dominates the Cameroonian capital of Yaounde. Patiently, she explored some of the remarkable diversity in this country that boasts over 200 different ethno-linguistic communities. For this, she was assisted by an artist she had worked with on her album “Beti”, Mama Andela. “She has been a pillar for me, one of the great voices of Cameroon,” insists Nyolo who holds her affectionately in one of the pictures in the CD sleeve-notes. The sound Andela makes is “like the beginning of rhythm with old mamas singing deep in the forest”, a hypnotic bikutsi backed by Nyolo.

Even more touching are the Bidjoï sisters, one of the finds of the album. Tsogo and Ndongo come from the same village school as Sally and in a fragile and moving way recount the death of their sister Chantel:

“A woman is fine when she has a sister
And my sister has failed me…
My Chantel has failed me.
My Chantel is running.”

One reviewer accurately described their approach as the following: “both ephemeral (the singing is light, accented, and girlish; the instruments ping and spronk as if they’ve got nothing serious on their minds) and solid as stone.”

This song, “Chantal”, reflects the freshness of Nyolo’s approach and her courage in taking unknown names, often amateurs, and thrusting them into the limelight. The quality of the recording belies the rustic nature of the Tsogo Studio she built. Nyolo allows the hustle and bustle of the neighbourhood to occasionally filter through and give the music extra spice and warmth. Not all the songs reach the high standards set by the likes of Guéyanka, Gisèle Mvo Anji and Edmond Fils Nkoa Band (the disappointing “Salaire” by a guitarist with the unlikely name of Américain, comes to mind). But the authentic and fresh sounds she has assembled are sure to seduce neophytes and those among us who enjoy this intelligent alliance between African roots and slick musical acumen.

January 2007

Daniel Brown


  

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