La Marfée

Description

Yannick Noah returns to the roots of his childhood and music with his new album La Marfée. He tells of his return to Cameroon, where he takes up the torch from his parents in his hometown, Etoudi. The transmission and rediscovery of his roots are the common thread of this album with African sounds.
Each time, YANNICK NOAH only returns if he has something to say. And his twelfth studio album is no exception to this rule. He comes to talk about brotherhood, love, Africa, solidarity, transmission; he comes to talk about his life – a life so personal and universal at the same time.
BACK TO AFRICA, the first song of the album, dances with the responsibility he now assumes, since the star of sports and then music has inherited the role of village chief of ETOUDI, once held by his father, who passed away in 2017. The former town near YAOUNDÉ, the capital of CAMEROON, has become a neighborhood of a vast African metropolis, and YANNICK NOAH is re-rooting himself while facing the challenges of modernity. Very concrete, varied, urgent, and moving responsibilities, somewhere between the venerable obligations of an Elder and the resourcefulness of a leader of a charitable organization.
He titled his new album LA MARFÉE, like the school created by his mother upon her arrival in CAMEROON – which is named after a neighborhood in Sedan, YANNICK's hometown. Founded to spare children from walking miles every day, it now welcomes four hundred students, and the son, now an Elder of his village, is keen to ensure that his work continues.
“The last birthday that marked me was my thirtieth, when people started asking me at what age I would retire. Sixty years old, it shocked me. So I decided to go on and continue what my dad had done in Cameroon.” A third career, in sum, aimed at sharing, attention, and transmission.