{"id":40714,"date":"2020-04-06T17:03:33","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T16:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/paris-cest-lafrique-the-pioneers-episode-1\/"},"modified":"2023-01-03T16:42:26","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T14:42:26","slug":"paris-cest-lafrique-the-pioneers-episode-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/paris-cest-lafrique-the-pioneers-episode-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris c&#8217;est l&#8217;Afrique: The Pioneers (episode 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p><iframe class=\"pam-featured-content\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kmncSaU4jT0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><b>The documentary series <\/b><b><i>Paris c\u2019est l\u2019Afrique<\/i><\/b><b> by Philippe Conrath has resurfaced from oblivion. As of today, PAM will share a weekly dose of the cult film via our YouTube channel. Episode 1: \u201cThe Pioneers\u201d.<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #000000;\">It is truly a remarkable documentation. Sending you back to a time, when the French capital Paris was both the bridge for African music in the West, and the crossroads at which most of the continent\u2019s artists would pass through (Mainly French-speaking, but not limited to).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From <\/span><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/tag\/fela-kuti\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fela<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to Alpha Blondy via <\/span><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/tag\/youssou-ndour\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Youssou N\u2019Dour<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Johnny Clegg, <\/span><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/tag\/pierre-akendengue\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pierre Akendengu\u00e9<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/tag\/manu-dibango\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Manu Dibango<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/tag\/ray-lema\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ray Lema<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Papa Wemba, Toure Kunda, <\/span><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/tag\/salif-keita\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Salif Keita<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Kante Manfila, Doudou N\u2019Diaye Rose\u2026 Almost all of the greats feature here on screen, thirty years younger, at a time when their careers were flourishing. The passage of time has made these images even more moving, and all the more interesting given that we now know how much the music and its authors have evolved since.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let&#8217;s take it back to the beginning, to 1988. Journalist Philippe Conrath, who since 1982 has been chronicling Black music for the daily <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lib\u00e9ration <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">newspaper, is in the process of leaving the newspaper, when he is asked to write and direct this very series of documentary movies. A true godsend for him who has been able to observe closely the rise in importance of this music, at a time when the \u201cworld music\u201d term hasn\u2019t been coined yet. Regardless, these artists have already found their rightful place and a certain popularity. It\u2019s in Paris that the phenomenon begins to takes hold. This is how Johnny Clegg recalls it, in the opening of the first episode, \u201cThe Pioneers\u201d. The South African artist owes much of his major success to French audiences. In turn, this becomes a much discussed theme, and Conrath interviews all the artists on their relationship to the very peculiar place that is Paris. Those who go there to develop their career, those who choose to settle there, and those who decide against all odds to stay at home in Africa, despite the difficulties (including Fela, also featured in this first episode). Conrath and his small team even have enough financial resources to go back and forth between Paris and some of the African countries whose French capital has, in a way, become an overseas embassy.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><b><br \/>\nA film with curse?&nbsp;<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #000000;\">In the course of a year, they accumulate footage in Paris, Bamako, Kinshasa, Lagos, Libreville and Dakar. A long-lasting job which was due to be broadcast on the French national TV channel FR3 at the end of 1988. But the programmed slot in which this series was scheduled for was cut before the end of editing. However, the film was delivered to the channel, but remained mothballed. It was in January 1989, during a strike from all French national broadcasters, that someone used the film to &#8220;fill in&#8221; the empty slots. It\u2019s a Wednesday afternoon, and one of the director\u2019s friends informs him of the news, enraged that such great work is being broadcast on the sly, almost clandestinely. Nevertheless, Conrath continues his mission in highlighting African artists by any other means: at the end of the same year in 1989, he founded the Africolor festival, which he would go on to direct for over 25 years. And it\u2019s on occasion of Africolor\u2019s 30th anniversary that the festival team finally began to reconstruct its history, and to research this ill-fated film.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Philippe Conrath erased the work from his memory, out of disappointment in having seen it ignored, &#8220;like the bottom of the shoe&#8221;, as the Ivorians say. The film was found on Betamax cassette, and immediately processed to digital. With a fresh new screening at home, the director is blown away: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;Some of them are dead now, others are still alive, and it&#8217;s fascinating to see them again, and in particular for me to understand that this is the music that made my whole life. Also, the artists\u2019 speech reflects deep thoughts, which might help in explaining life today. And then, to be able to see the energy of Femi Kuti at just 25-years-old during a rehearsal, while his father had just turned 50, is mythical.&#8221;<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><b><br \/>\nLondon-Paris-Lagos: meeting Fela&nbsp;<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #000000;\">Fela in fact, was one of the pioneers in the emergence of African music in Europe, even in only passing through Paris where his managers resided (in 1987, Francis Kertekian). This is what he comes to explain in this first episode where you can see \u2013&nbsp;in addition to Femi&nbsp;\u2013 a very young Seun at only five years old at the time, already blowing into a sax. The director wanted the interview with Fela so much that he decided to travel for the first time to the frantic and chaotic megalopolis from which the father of Afrobeat drew his inspiration: Lagos.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400; color: #000000;\">The two men had already met before, during an encounter that is certainly worth re-telling.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Philippe Conrath: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;I went to London to watch him perform, just a few days before he continued his tour in Paris. In the piece I wrote for [the newspaper] Lib\u00e9ration, I slated his performance: during that tour, he invited a kind of magician with him on stage, who would perform for half an hour. Later, he explained to me that as he had just come out of prison, his hand was hurting. As he couldn\u2019t play for extended periods, he had trouble holding the stage and invited the magician along so he could take a break during the show. When Fela arrived in France, his manager Francis Kertekian translated the article for him (Fela had insisted that he did not just summarize it, but translate it in full).<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then Kertekian contacted me to let me know that Fela wanted to meet me. I went to see his show in Paris at L\u2019\u00c9lys\u00e9e Montmartre venue. Fela played for three hours&#8230; and there was no magician there this time!\u201d After the concert, I met him backstage and he said to me with a very menacing tone: <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8216;Meet me at the hotel tomorrow morning!&#8217;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When I got there, he asked me to take my shoes off. Then he told Femi to grab a paper and a pencil, and draw the outline of my foot. And there Fela said: <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018When we meet again, you will have the same shoes as mine.\u2019<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The following year, he called me to tell me that he was in Paris. And he offered me a pair of shoes, similar to his own. So when I finally met him in Lagos, there was already a collusion between us.<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At his home, there was a tree with several sheets of paper hanging from it. I asked him:<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013&nbsp;What\u2019s with the paper sheets?<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013&nbsp;A bible merchant came here\u2026 I thought these should be used for something.<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fela had torn off the pages and hung them in the tree.<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 This way, we have a direct link to God.&#8221;<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cWhat can you give me for one beer?\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c\u2013&nbsp;I would like to interview you, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I told him.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> How much is your offer?<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013&nbsp;One beer!<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013&nbsp;One beer? Are you kidding me? American TV just came by and offered me $1,000 for an interview!<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He took me into the room where he presides like a village chief. This is where everyone comes to see him and ask him for anything and everything&#8230; he would sit there, in his underpants of course, a huge joint between his lips. I was high too. The two other guys in my film crew were getting impatient, they were paid to shoot and thought we were just wasting time.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After a while, Fela said to the other people in the room:<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013&nbsp;You know who this white man is? He came to interview me, but he won\u2019t pay me.<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Collective disapproval.<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013&nbsp;He offered me a beer, to me, Fela! What the heck? But for the sake of Danielle Mitterrand <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013&nbsp;whose foundation had worked for the liberation of Fela&nbsp;\u2013,<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and also for Lib\u00e9ration <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013&nbsp;who had also supported him&nbsp;\u2013<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, I will agree to give a free interview to this asshole.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then he says,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2018Let me change my pants!\u2019 <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and left. He returned almost an hour later, with a new pair of underpants, and eventually gave me a short interview. Fela was a really funny person, he was above par. An incredible guy who, although had taken real risks, kept a strong sense of humor.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can now see the exclusive part of the documentary featuring Father Kuti and his two sons together at the same time. In Episode 1 \u2013&nbsp;\u201cThe Pioneers\u201d, you also see Johnny Clegg; the dean-like <\/span><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/manu-dibango-paris-c-est-l-afrique\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Manu Dibango who recounts his professional debut as a musician in Paris<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; Pierre Akendengu\u00e9 returning to his country in Libreville after spending twenty years in France; and also Hilarion Nguema (with his colorful song \u201cConjoncture\u201d); not forgetting <\/span><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/paris-cest-lafrique-manu-dibango-les-tetes-brulees-1989\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Les T\u00eates Br\u00fbl\u00e9es in Dibango\u2019s living room<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the latter praising the band\u2019s creative talent, in being capable of transforming tradition by making the round trip \u201cbetween the village and the moon\u00bb, as he put it. An episode that, much like the following, immerses us in a common history that links the West, and in particular France, to African cultures, at precisely the time when the latter began to impose itself. Whilst the film was still being edited, Mory Kant\u00e9\u2019s hit \u201cYeke Yeke\u201d met huge success in Europe and would hold the top of the charts for a long time, as if to further shine a light on the power of this series, which PAM is pleased and honored to present to you, 31 years after its first discreet broadcast (courtesy of the director).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The documentary series Paris c\u2019est l\u2019Afrique by Philippe Conrath has resurfaced from oblivion. As of today, PAM will share a weekly dose of the cult film via our YouTube channel. Episode 1: \u201cThe Pioneers\u201d. It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":39737,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7833,9398,9402,9403],"tags":[3804],"location":[7914,7934,7942,7986,8132,8172,8264,7844],"yst_prominent_words":[9241,8403,8509,11802,11805,8996,8932,8407,8414,9211,8447,11801,8402,8435,9006,11361,11804,11803,8438,8619],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40714"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=40714"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=40714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}