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19
Postmodern Blues
by Jim Winders
Paris, Africa
This summer, I made my third journey
to Paris since becoming quite captivated
by the music of the black African immi
grants who now make it the largest center
for African music anywhere in the world.
Disturbing signs say this situation may be
threatened. 1 write these lines only a few
days after Parisian police used tear gas and
truncheons to clear Malian hunger strik
ers out of a Paris church. They had been
there around 40 days. Not
unlike many in the United
States, more and more
French people voice hostility
toward their illegal immi
grants, and Prime Minister
Alain Juppe s strident denun
ciations of late are in keep
ing with the heavy-handed
methods of the gendarmes.
France has depended on
immigration for its economic
livelihood for more than a
century. In 1981, newly-
elected president Francois
Mitterand relaxed immigra
tion restrictions on Sub-Sa
haran Africans, and they be
gan to stream in. Like most
other parts of the capitalist
world, France has felt the
pain and dislocation of falling wages, un
employment and the seemingly impossible
demand for expanding government services
in a time of shrinking resources. Just as in
the U.S., it is all too easy tor the French to
blame their nation’s economic woes on il
legal immigrants. Such scapegoating is en
couraged by the real culprits, the C.E.O.s
and ot'nei privileged elites whose inflated
profits grow more and more ob.~ene as
wages decline. We have Gov. Pete Wilson
and Rush Limbaugh. France has the gro
tesque Jean-Marie Le Pen, an aging World
War 11 veteran who combines devout Ro
man Catholicism, fierce militarism, viru
lent anti-Semitism, and a De Gaulle-like
reverence for French gloire.
The steady drumbeat of Lc Pen’s France
pour les frangais message has made immi-
gr nt-bashing increasingly acceptable in
French politics, even as most establishment
types and nearly ail prominent journalists
denounce him as fascist. His star appeared to
dim this summer when he inaladroitly let slip
the observation that the French national soc
cer team, with its variety of complexions, was
not really French. Even the most right-wing
Frenchman embraces his country’s team,
dreadlocks and alt, when passions run high
for lefoot. Despite this gaffe, Le Pen remains
a force to be reckoned with.
If you want to survive and work as an
immigrant in France, you need the coveted
residence permit known as the carte de
sejour. This was also the name, a few years
back, of a great band composed of young
Arab immigrants, an early example of what
the music biz has recently dubbed “Ethno-
punk." One of the musicians 1 interviewed
this summer amazed me by telling me that,
for eight years, he had resided in France
without his carte de sejour. (He now has
one.) This was the highly regarded 47-year
old Zairean guitarist known as ‘‘Lokassa’
(short for Lokassa K. Ya Mbongo), formerly
we tallied
of music
as well
as the
new
spirit in
culture.
with the great singer Tabu Ley Rochereau,
and now guitarist with the group “Soukous
Stars.”
1 interviewed Lokassa at Harry Son, one
of the busiest studios scattered around the
Paris region, near the Porte de Pantin
(northeastern suburbs). He and his band
were leaving the next day for their U.S.
tour, and he was collecting tour informa
tion, checking his passport, and waiting for
the doctor who was coming
to administer the required
inoculations — “dans mon
cul,” Lokassa chuckled, pat
ting the seat of his jeans. We
listened to tapes of new
Soukous Stars recordings,
and Lokassa got out his gui
tar and showed me the un
conventional tuning he in
vented for his distinctive
rhythm guitar style, using
open 7th chords.
The guitar-driven brand
of soukous delivered by
Lokassa’s group depends on
the complex-sounding
chunky chords of his guitar
around which lead guitarist
Dally Kimoko’s soaring riffs
spiral. Like Lokassa,
Kimoko is a highly regarded guitarist,
sought after for session work and touring
bands of such World Music stars as Kanda
Bongo Man. 1 had a lengthy conversation
with Kimoko in the quiet courtyard of the
apartment 1 was lucky enough to sublet
very near the Luxembourg Gardens. We
talked of music as well as the new meaner
spirit in French culture. Through him, 1
was made more aware of a younger genera
tion of Paris-based African musicians. This
new knowledge intensified, thanks to con
versations with Valeric Coudert, who
works in the Boulevard des Italiens store
of fnac , the huge and hugely influential
French media/electronics retail chain.
Coudert buys new African and other World
Music (“Musique du Monde”) recordings
for fnac .
They both led me to drummer Awilo
Longomba, a young Zairean immigrant
whose father “Vicky" was an enormously
influential and well-known singer-
songwriter, and lead singer with the great
“OK Jazz.” 1 sprke with Awilo in his com
fortable garret apartment rear the Piace de
la Repuhlique, and I got the answer I nearly
always get when 1 ask an African musician
in Paris who he has played or recorded
with: “tout le monde (everybody).” Indeed,
his JlP/Melodie debut compact disc Moto
Pamba (“Less Than Nothing” in the
Lingala language) features a number of
prominent guest musicians, including Dally
Kimoko and the sensational Zairean singer
Sam Mangwana. Mangwana turns in some
fine performances, and Longomba adds some
impressive vocals of his own. My favorite
tunes, though, are those (“Moto Pamba,”
“Moyen Te” and “Abyak”) spotlighting the
thrilling guitar work of Kimoko, as both he
and Longomba, with his urgent drumming,
kick things into high gear.
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