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artist.....: Hamad Kalkaba
album......: Hamad Kalkaba and the Golden Sounds 1974-1975
year.......: 2017
label......: Analog Africa
AALP084
source.....: WEB
moodswing..: Funk
releasesize: 64,28 MB
tracks.....: 06
length.....: 28:03
encoder....: LAME
quality....: 320kbps
scenealized: 03.22.2018
I remember the day clearly. I was
searching for treasures in a record
shop in Yaounde, the Capital city of
Cameroon, when suddenly I came across a
7-inch record with a picture of a young
man wearing a traditional hat and
bearing the marks of several imposing
vertical scars on the side of his face,
carved when he was just a boy as a
reminder of his heritage in the Musgum
tribe of the northern part of the
country.
The record contained two songs -
'Gandjal Kessoum' and 'Toufle' - by an
artist I had never heard of before
named Hamad Kalkaba. Both cuts were raw
classics of fuzzed-out bass, pin-sharp
horns, built upon the unshakable
foundation of Northern CameroonÆs
mightiest rhythm: the Gandjal. The shop
owner - who noticed that I was
listening to the same record over and
over again - mentioned that 'There is
another single with a green cover of
the same artist'.
Over the next six years I searched for
that 'green cover' and finally found it
in a record collection belonging to an
old bar in Parakou in northern Benin.
While most of the records had been
beaten and worn by a life spent in the
jukebox, this one had been sitting in
its paper sleeve for forty years,
untouched and unplayed, seemingly
waiting for us to pick it up and rip
the two soulful Gandjal tunes from it,
the masterpieces 'Fouh Sei Allah' and
'Tchakoulate'.
These two records, plus a third simply
named 'Nord Cameroon Rythms' constitute
the entire discography of Hamad
Kalkaba. Neglected for decades by all
but the most devoted collectors of Afro
music, Hamad Kalkaba and the Golden
Sounds at long last gathers together
the body of work of one of CameroonÆs
forgotten geniuses.
But unlike many musicians who emerged
from nowhere, recorded a few singles
and vanished again, Kalkaba hadn't
disappeared. Far from it. He was a
distinguished public figure, a retired
Colonel in the army of Cameroon, and a
former member of Cameroon's Olympic
Selection Committee. When we tracked
him down he was serving as president of
the Confederation of African Athletics.
And Although Kalkaba's job kept him
busy, and he seemed initially
dismissive of the music he'd made as a
young man, he turned out to be an
enthusiastic ally in this project. He
arranged interviews, helped fill in the
blanks and, when we finally met him in
Yaounde in 2016, provided us with
photographs, lyric sheets and notes.
During the interview Kalkaba explained
how the songs recorded in the mid 1970s
were part of a movement, a movement
initiated by musicians from all around
Cameroon who, with the help of
keyboards, drum kits and electric
guitars, had started to modernise the
traditional rhythms of their regions.
For Kalkaba it was no different and
backed by his band the Golden Sounds,
devoted himself to the promotion of the
sounds of northern Cameroon.
One of the aims of Analog Africa is to
showcase the colourful diversity of
styles that exist in Africa and its
diaspora and today we are very proud to
be able to give these Gandjal tunes
their first worldwide release.
URL: https://is.gd/Ee4aUH
psst, more info at http://analogafrica.com/
01 Stadjam Dada Sare 03:44
02 Toufle 04:29
03 Fouh Sei Allah 04:53
04 Lamido 05:38
05 Gandjal Kessoum 05:19
06 Tchakoulate 04:00