"Dibiye" reissued, Francis Bebey honored
Patrick Bebey and Vincent Mahey in studio at RFI.
© Joe Farmer / RFI
By: Joe Farmer Follow
4 min
20 years ago, the Cameroonian poet, singer and guitarist Francis Bebey passed away at the age of 71.
The PeeWee label!
reissues today the famous album
Dibiye originally
released in 1998. For the occasion, the disc is presented in a deluxe version with three additional titles, a very complete booklet, new photos and an interview with the artist who died.
His son, Patrick Bebey, and the sound engineer at the time, Vincent Mahey, tell us this week about the artistic adventure of this historic production.
Publicity
Francis Bebey was a prominent figure in "L'épopée des Musiques Noires".
Multidisciplinary artist, he was a personality whose diverse talents raised him among the great designers of the 20th century.
Nourished by the repertoire of European classical music, his science of harmony will set him apart from his musical counterparts.
Bach and Handel are then part of a musical landscape imported by the colonists, but Francis Bebey is not satisfied with this cultural orientation alone.
He will therefore seek to know the traditional values of his ancestral identity and, over the years, will find the African tone of his origins.
Introduced to the banjo by his brother, it is on the guitar that he will definitely reveal himself.
Francis Bebey during the recording of "Dibiye" in 1997. © PeeWee!
Studios
Francis Bebey arrived in France at the turn of the 1950s. He began studying English at La Sorbonne and wasted no time in seeing his fellow Cameroonians, including a certain Manu Dibango who spoke to him about jazz and blues. The worm is in the fruit and Francis Bebey lets himself be lulled by these free and rebellious Afro-American tones. Happy graduate, he convinced himself to become a journalist. He will also take his first steps as a reporter for Sorafom (French overseas broadcasting company), the ancestor of Radio France Internationale. Lover of beautiful letters, his heart hesitates between words and notes. He begins to write essays but his fingers inspired by the six strings of his guitar itch. Throughout its existence,the ambivalence of his artistic aptitudes gives him the opportunity to shine in several fields. His first writings hit the mark (
Agatha Moudio's son
- 1968) as his first recordings (
Idiba
- 1972).
However, his academic knowledge led him to dig into the furrow of composition.
It responds to the most scholarly requests.
He wrote a musical piece for string quartet and pygmy flute.
He offers Franco-American virtuoso Sonia Wieder-Atherton a work for sanza and cello.
His application is matched only by his malice because, behind the seriousness of his work, there is a laughing man who has fun denouncing the faults of his contemporaries in catchy melodies which will make his glory.
Agatha
,
If the Gauls had known
,
The male condition
point the finger at the laughable postures of humanity.
Patrick Bebey and Vincent Mahey, happy to honor the memory of Francis Bebey at RFI.
© Joe Farmer / RFI
Invited on the most prestigious international stages, Francis Bebey will become the host of the greats of this world and will retain, until his sad death in 2001, the esteem of his disciples and admirers.
As
Dibiye
reappears
, let us remember this spiritual finesse which espoused the inventiveness of an insatiable thinker.
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Culture
Music
On the same subject
You tell me the news !
Vincent Mahey pays tribute to Francis Bebey with the reissue of the album "Dibiye"
African classical literature
"The Son of Agatha Moudio", by Francis Bebey
By voice (s)
Francis Bebey: "No instrument took hold of me like the guitar"