In 1958, Guinea, Liberia, Ghana and Ethiopia in Sub-Sahara Africa and Morocco, Tunisia and Libya in North Africa became independent. That made seven African states supporting the Pan-African Congress and its slogans of Hands off Africa! Africa Must Be Free! Down with Imperialism and Colonialism! In 1960, The Year of Africa, a third of the African countries gained independence. In 1963, over thirty Heads of independent African states met in Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia, and signed the Charter of the Organisation of African Unity OAU. This was Africa’s first continental institution of independent states. And by the end of the sixties, most of the African countries were independent. In the sixties, the continent was moving into freedom, in an optimistic groove and its music was swinging. And the Africans were dancing to their music.
Africa vowed to enter the world stage with a contribution to civilisation. Africa would highlight the black way of being in the world, guided by intuition, rhythm and oneness, as Léopold Sédar Senghor put it. And music was going to transport this endowment. African art and music were going to reconnect Africa with its the worldwide diaspora. For Senghor, jazz was an important expression of Négritude and reflected how black identity rooted in the unchanging rhythms of an organic rural community. Music was going to help build the young African nations, preserve authenticity, and assert black identity. And music was also going to clear the way to African unity.
We may not always understand the music of other cultures; its sounds, tunes, and rhythms may not be music to our ears. But unlike writing, music is not a cultural invention. It’s a human universal that has evolved in our ancestors. It’s one of those things that sets Homo sapiens apart from the other animals. Neurologists tell us that our mammalian brain makes a distinction between speech, singing, and instrumental music. And singing and music light up the limbic system, where our emotions and long-term memory reside. So, where does music stimulate the driving human life forces of survival, sexuality, community, aggression, and spirituality? Where in all of this do we revert to music?
First and foremost, music enhances social connection and bonding. In courtship, odes of admiration, love, and devotion to the desired sex-partner are sung. But not only the primal life force of sexuality is driving music, so is the essential human need of community. Here, music creates togetherness, unity and belonging, shared values and cultural identity. Music gives comfort, lifts the spirits and encourages. In football, the fans sing to rally behind their team and cheer them on. Singing in choruses, sharing rhythms and melodies – and dancing – carry social gatherings, rituals, and religious ceremonies. Music is the gateway to that spiritual otherworld we all too much neglect.
In politics, court minstrels sing songs of praise for the leader – while the opposition sings protest songs in the streets and discos. Singing your national anthem conveys a national identity and unity around it. And let’s not forget the marching bands and the singing of the military. In my days of military service as a young lieutenant, I knew that in a long march, or in a long hold-up, morale of my unit would sink. Fortunately, I had a talented singer in the ranks who knew how to strike up a song and lift the spirits of my men. And I will never forget a long-ago history lesson in high school: The Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was a known womanizer. And his soldiers, when marching into battle, would sing songs warning their adversaries that Caesar was coming to conquer not only their land but also their women. This will certainly have elated the soldiers, knowing that they would commit more than sexual micro-aggressions towards the women who would get in their way. Male aggression and sexuality are a dangerous mix.
The distinct characteristics of music are always cultural and reflect the cosmology, metaphysical order and spirituality of the community. In the African universe, the running of the world is in the hands of gods and spirits, and the ancestors. They mediate between the humans and the supreme being. African music is composed of sounds and rhythms that mirror this host of natural and spiritual forces in their multiple time scales. As among the spiritual forces of the world no single god or spirit dominates the others, in the African music no single rhythm is allowed to impose itself on the others. The African polyrhythmic music reflects the polytheistic world view. And as much as the humans and the spirits communicate with each other, the music is interactive. Call-and-Response is a frequent feature in African music: The lead singer or instrument calls out a tune which, in response, is followed by another tune from another singer, instrument, or often, chorus. This creates a musical question-and-answer or conversation. Also, refrains from a choral group and from the sing along of the public are frequent. Altogether this creates a free-flowing musical jam on a thick carpet woven of rhythms. And dancing is always permitted.
And with Africa moving into independence, there was a back-to-Africa movement that was much more successful than the one of the former slaves of North America: The dance music of the African slaves of the Caribbean and South America. All together Latin jazz, Samba, Salsa, and most prominently, the Rumba of Cuba.
Becoming independent already in 1958, Guinea radically broke with France; We prefer independence with danger to servitude in tranquillity. In some instances, it seems to have worked. In my visits to Conakry during my tenure there, I found beer gardens where in other capitals of francophone Africa I would find restaurants and bistros. Instead of French brands of cigarettes, I found a Swiss one – produced by British American Tobacco. All the same it sold by the name of Parisienne. Ahmed Sekou Touré, the first president, was music-loving and the first African president of independent Africa to state sponsor modern African music. With their fusion of the traditional folk music of Guinea with jazz and Caribbean rhythms, the band Bembeya Jazz National became a pioneer of Afropop. They played for over four decades and with their last recording of 2002, toured Europe and the United States.
Presenting your credentials as an Ambassador to an African president is much more formal than in the West. Red carpets, national flags and anthems, brass bands, and guards of honour rule the protocol. Preparing for the ceremony in Conakry, the Guinean protocol requested my office to send them a copy of the Swiss national anthem. We sent them the notes and text. No, no, they responded, if we could send them a recorded version. We did but I wondered, because whoever has heard the Swiss anthem knows what a pitiful piece of Western music it is. But then in Conakry, having walked the length of the guard of honour, standing on the red carpet in front of the Guinean and Swiss flags, – I know exactly how a football star feels standing in line for the same thing before an international game – the band played the anthem. And wow! It was fantastic. They had really jazzed it up. For the first time in my life, our anthem put a smile on my face. I almost started dancing.
To celebrate the independence of Senegal in 1960 and its first president Léopold Sédar Senghor, the owner of the Miami Club in Dakar founded the Star Band. The band combined the vocals and drums of traditional Wolof music with Cuban sounds and jazz, electric guitars and horns. The Wolof are a large Atlantic language group of the Niger-Congo peoples and the largest of Senegal. Thus, the Mbalax sound of the Star Band quickly became known and attracted musicians from all over Senegal and the neighbouring countries. The band folded in the early eighties, but it had launched the careers of many singers and off-shoot bands. Best known maybe Youssou N’Dour and Orchestra Baobab, who came to fame all over Africa, in Europe and the United States. Outside Africa, the Senegalese and the new African music from other countries is generically called Afro-Cuban jazz or Afropop. It also goes as World Music, without any reference to the underlying traditional African music. Orchestra Baobab are still playing to an international audience today. In 2001 they recorded an album called Specialist in All Styles – which to me captures the multiple fusions popular African music is making.
The first president of Mali, Modibo Keita, also state sponsored music. The government created regional orchestras for the seven then regions and from 1962 onward, they would compete in annual National Youth Weeks. After Keita was ousted by a coup d'état in 1968, support to the arts was cancelled and music lined up for the state sponsored arts festivals was cleansed of Caribbean rhythms. Malian music recentred on its folk music and the tradition of the Mande griots, singing praise for the status quo and political leaders. The Mande are also a large and scattered inland tribe of Niger-Congo people, in western West Africa.
Apart from the traditional music and griots, in 1970 the director of Mali’s railway, a music-lover, set up a band at the railway-owned Buffet Hotel de la Gare, in Bamako. The Rail Band was also among the renowned orchestras playing Afropop, blending traditional sounds and instruments of Mali with swinging Latin, mostly Cuban, jazz. Over the years, The Rail Band has launched the careers of many artists, and it is still playing today. One of those who started their career in the Rail Band is Salif Keita who is a son of the Keita dynasty that ruled Mali from the 11th to the early 17th century, at times as an empire. He was an outcast in his community and family. His albinism brings bad luck and becoming a musician is unworthy of his noble status. After only a few years, he left the Rail Band and joined Les Ambassadeurs Internationaux, another Malian Afropop band. Due to political unrest in Mali, the whole band moved to Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, and in 1983 disbanded. As the Golden Voice of Africa, he helped putting African music on the global map and the infectious melodies and his powerful voice made Salif Keita a star of World Music.
Fast forward: In 2021, the last military coup took place in Mali and in 2023, Salif Keita took on the role of special advisor on cultural affairs to the junta. He had earlier stated that democracy was not a good thing for Africa, what Africans needed was a benevolent dictator. Bewilderment among his international fans. He has not recorded since 2018. But is the next recording of Salif Keita going to be one of praise singing in the tradition of the Mande griots?
In Abidjan from 2005 to 2010 I learned that for diplomats in Africa, it pays to get into the popular music of the host country – for political access. When I arrived, Aïcha Koné, the diva of Ivorian singers, had just presented her latest album Farafina Miria, an ode to the African Woman. I liked it and looking for more, I found an older recording, Poro Dance. Her breakthrough as a performing artist came in the seventies and also here, the state had a hand in it: First appearances on Ivorian state television RTI, financial support from the first president of Côte d’Ivoire Felix Houphouet-Boigny and singing at his events. And in the Pan-African spirit of the time, rubbing shoulders with other famous artists; Salif Keita from Mali, Youssou N’Dour from Senegal, Manu Dibango from Cameroon, Tabu Ley Rochereau from Congo, and her role model Miriam Makeba from South Africa – who was then in exile in Guinea. In the seventies and eighties, Abidjan became an important hub for West African music.
At one of my meetings with Gbagbo in the opening causerie before I brought up the issue of Ivorian debts to Swiss companies, we came to talk about Ivorian music. He was surprised that I knew Aïcha Koné and agreed with me that Poro Dance was her best recording. And the bonding effect of music kicked in. He disclosed to me that she would often perform at his events, and he would invite me to any next one at which she would sing. He did not forget. Once I was welcomed as a guest of honour to the wedding of a family member and once to an event with the Lebanese business community. The Lebanese play an important economic role in many West African countries and Côte d’Ivoire hosts their biggest diaspora in the region. They are merchants and money traders, they are invested in real estate and industry, cacao and coffee, hotels and restaurants. They control over a third of the Ivorian economy. And yes, I also got a call from the finance minister about the debt.
As jovial and witty as Laurent Gbagbo could be in private, he is a ruthless politician. Having lost the presidential election of 2011, he launched a civil conflict and robbed the state treasury. He was brought before the International Criminal Court ICC for alleged war crimes but was acquitted. At home, he faced a 20-year jail sentence for the robbery but was pardoned. Notwithstanding, in 2024 he started campaigning to stand in the 2025 presidential elections. Aïcha Koné teamed up with him. She stems from the North of Côte d’Ivoire, on the border to Mali and Burkina Faso. She is Senufo and of the same large ethnic group of the Niger-Congo peoples of the Sahel, as the Mande of Mali and the Wolof of Senegal. The West-Sahelian populations all have more Sudanic influences from the Nilo-Saharan peoples to their East than have the Niger-Congo peoples of the forests in the South. And praise singing for leaders seems to be part of this heritage. So, Aïcha Koné was now singing for Laurent Gbagbo again. And on Ivorian social media one performance went viral. The almost seventy years old diva sang to the almost eighty years old politician: Tu es garçon. In French this alludes to masculinity, being strong and smart and rich, and desired by women. A real man – toxic, in the world of the gender feminists of the West. Gbagbo has since been barred from participating in the election. But Aïcha Koné still has other praise singing to do. Since 2023, she is singing the praise of the Alliance des États du Sahel AES between the juntas of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger: AES, the march to freedom, she sings. I want my oil, I want my diamond, I want my gold. AES, you are right!
Already in colonial times, Kinshasa was not only the capital of the Congo but also the centre of African popular music. Since the thirties, it had a guild of recording artists, mostly playing acoustic guitar. They played rumba to which they added American swing. In the fifties their guitars turned electric, and they formed ensembles. Since 1953 with Le Grand Kallé et l'African Jazz, Kinshasa had the first African full-time orchestra, playing and recording Congolese rumba. L’African Jazz was modernist, cosmopolitan, and internationally connected. In 1960 to celebrate the independence of the Congo and the Year of Africa, they released the Independence Cha Cha, most probably the best-known song of Congolese rumba.
Since 1956, Le Grand Kallé et l’African Jazz had a competitor: Franco et le T.P. OK Jazz (Tout Puissant Orchestre Kinshasa). His Congolese rumba was a little bit more rootsy and traditional than the one of l’African Jazz, but he was also recording, and he also drew large crowds. – The start of the Congo into independence and freedom was a gruelling one. The political upheavals and conflicts of the Congo Crisis dampened the party, but the music in Kinshasa kept on playing. When in 1965 in a bloodless coup, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu ended the crisis, Congolese rumba had become the prototype of Afropop, in Africa and the world. And Mobutu would use it to unite the country and, after all the years of colonialism, lead it to its authentic identity. Franco bought into Mobutu’s policies of authenticité and made himself and his T.P. OK Jazz available for Mobutu’s animation politique. On one hand, he had no choice. Mobutu had nationalised the music industry and state sponsored it. Incidentally, he did the same with beer and football. On the other hand, Franco was generously rewarded with a recording studio and a night club of his own. The role Franco played for Mobutu was ambiguous. He was not a praise singer in the tradition of the West African griots. The Congolese come from the Congo side of the Niger-Congo peoples and do not have such a social institution. Franco rather saw himself as portraying the social situation of the people and in his songs, he would often veil his criticism by relating old Congolese stories, legends, and myths. Sometimes it worked, twice he was imprisoned. Yet, he could also sing praise. After five, ten and twenty years of Mobutu’s corrupt and criminal rule, he dedicated entire albums to the country, now Zaïre, and the father, Mobutu.
During my stay in Kinshasa in 1981/82 Franco and his band were in their prime. They would often perform with T.P. OK Jazz as a huge ensemble, with multiple singers, guitarists, horn players and percussionists. One evening, I saw them in an open-air concert with a six-head dance troop called Les Parachutistes in the band, and for the call-and-response, Franco would call on his lead singer to attaque. On stage, Franco and T.P. OK Jazz took no prisoners. They were spectacular and the music was immediate, forceful, and rich. Franco died in 1990, but his Congolese rumba plays on; on the radios and in the nightclubs of Africa, in my garden in Nairobi or Ferenberg when we do a barbeque, and in my Toyota Land Cruiser when I cruise through Africa.