1958 TOUR
Blick Bassy
Bassy was sent away from the capital Yaoundé at the age of ten, to live with his grandparents in the womb of the great equatorial rainforest. The lessons he learned there about the primacy of nature, the importance of village society to African identity, the uniquely poetic qualities of Bassa, the ancestral language he uses in his songs, underpin his life and resound through his work. They first took shape in Macase, the highly successful, award winning group he founded in Cameroon. Their expression matured after Bassy moved to France in 2005, in a string of acclaimed albums that culminated in 2016 with the release of Akö. Blick Bassy fights not only with the seductive touch of his music, but also with his books, his various labels and production companies, his You Tube music-business training video series, his global talent contest Show Me. The sheer breath of his activities is astonishing.
About 1958:
“An album to thaw the heart and sharpen the mind.”
Imagine an
African artist with the tenderly
subversive touch of Bon Iver, the haunting falsetto of Skip James, the razor-like mind of Akala, and the
inventiveness of Moses Sumney. You’ve just imagined Blick Bassy. In the slipstream of his acclaimed album Akö, Blick Bassy delivers "1958", a defiant tribute to the heroes who fought and died for the independence of his native Cameroun. Its focus is specific, but its themes - the bondage of neo- colonialism, the need for heroes, the relevance of history and the search for true identity - are universal.
1958 keeps faith with the style he’s been developing since he turned solo in 2009 – a style unique in contemporary African music, fed by Bassy’s love for the aerial soul of singers like Skip James or Marvin Gaye, and by his deep reverence for the traditional music of Cameroon and other parts of Africa. The DNA of this style is hard decode: its structure seems both rooted in specifics, and yet gleefully universal, pan-African, global; its allure is both reverentially aged, gentle, and at the same time, iconoclastically new.
1958 Tour
Until recently, anyone who even mentioned the name of Um Nyobé back in Cameroun, or of Felix Moumié or any of the other senior UPC activists, faced arrest and an indefinite jail sentence. Blick Bassy thinks it’s time to break the silence once and for all. He wants the truth to breathe again so that it can help heal the wounds of today. That’s why he’s called his new album 1958, and why it’s dedicated to the memory of Um Nyobé, Moumié and the other heroes of Cameroonian independence.
Cameroonians have forgotten their past, their traditions, their inheritance, their real heroes. They’ve lost sight of the shared stories that make a nation proud, even possible. Uncovering these stories is the purpose of 1958.
But 1958 is isn’t a call to regret, mourn or hate. It’s a call to act. Blick Bassy, believes that, like Europe, America, Russia and China, Africa must fight for its interests. “The emancipation of Africa interests no one else. People fight for their own interests, and they’re right to do so. It’s up to us Africans to defend our interests from now own.”
The Cameroon 1958 Tour is organised by the Goethe-Institut Kamerun and Institut Français du Cameroun.
BLICK BASSY 1958 TOUR
Cameroon
30.04.2021 | 7pm & 9pm – Concert at Institut Francais de Douala
02.05.2021 | 5pm & 7pm – Concert at Institut Francais de Yaoundé
03.05.2021 – Masterclass at Goethe-Institut Yaoundé
04.05.2021 | 6pm – Panel discussion at Goethe-Institut Yaoundé
05.05.2021 | 7pm & 9pm – Concert at Goethe-Institut Yaoundé
Events on invitation and registration only.
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