Jongler

Description

Pat Kalla is self-taught: “I come from the 'Let’s go!' school, as they say in Africa.” He juggles his two cultures, his sense of groove, and his love of words to pay a vibrant and danceable tribute to all those musical styles that are so little known in our latitudes. With his band, Super Mojo: “a collective of super groovers,” as he affectionately describes them, he takes up the torch of disco makossa, skillfully handling this almost “creolized” French language with “rigor, poetry, and lightness,” in the style of Francis Bebey. Bebey is a family hero, from Douala like his father, a storyteller, musician, journalist, and whose talent for double meanings has greatly inspired him. On "Jongler," he continues his collaboration with Bruno Patchworks, with whom he created the little hit “On te l’avait dit” on the album of their joint project, the Voilaaa Soundsystem. “We are passionate gluttons,” he exclaims. The theme of Jongler: to evoke the sufferings of the African continent, Françafrique, the CFA franc that impoverishes the people, to speak of those whose voices are silenced, to pay tribute to Mandela (“Madiba”), to the African woman (“Lady Angola”), or to an African soldier (“Un ancien combattant”). Pat Kalla presents us with another Africa, that of the youth whose consciousness is awakening and who believes in better tomorrows.