I’m becoming more curious about the unabated French love for Kuduro as a fresh Frédéric Galliano promo video lands in my inbox. Last month he launched the second release as Kuduro Sound System. Meanwhile, he’s prepping tracks for a Força Angola! record on Flamin Hotz to follow up last fall’s Força Kuduro! EP.
In light of a comment I dropped on Unfashionably Late’s global ghettotech conversation starter, I’ve also been curious about what adaptations have to take place for a nuwhirld sound to become popular up north. The lead single on FG’s release might provide a clue –
Elle chante en français! The easiest way to overcome the linguistic barrier is to smash it to pieces. Dama S. is definitely Angolan — although whether or not and how long she’s lived in France is unclear to me — but sings so the audience can understand every word, and perhaps even earn some extra cachet with her accent (keeps it exotic, no?). The chorus remains straightforward — “Danse with me, kuduro / Dance like this, kuduro / Move with me, kuduro / Grind with me, kuduro / Kuduro, kuduro, kuduro, now!” — and the images, other than the sunglasses exchange, mostly present snapshots of authentic kuduro in action. It’s a deft act of translation, retaining enough of the source material but providing a linguistic entrée for a new audience.
Some Google.fr searching reveals a small but growing kuduro niche, with FG as the recurrent #1 kuduro hustler en France. There are at least a dozen kuduro titles available on Amazon.fr, some of which I previously looked at. I also came across this message board thread, whose exchange goes roughly something like this –
tisba972: i’m looking for the title of a song (ragga, soca, a little antillean carnival) without many lyrics and keeps repeating itself harder and harder. I’ve heard that there’s a dance routine to this song at the west indian parties in bordeaux.
tiatia: the sound you are looking for is kuduro, and the song is the dança do tchilili [sic]
Nyabel: Lol kuduro is cape verdean, not antillean =) like buraka sound system for example
Sam-Fred: Hey, kuduro is angolan !!! It was invented in 1997 by Tony Amado in Luanda. It’s the only country that produces kuduro worthy of the name. Nothing to do with Cape Verde or anywhere else. For the right info, you can check out: http://kuduro-sound-system.blogspot.com and here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/kuduro.sound.system?ref=ts And the track that’s gonna blow up this summer is surely a song with the Angolan singer Dama S. & Kuduro Sound System “Danse avec moi Kuduro” ["Sam-Fred" sounds very much like Monsieur Galliano himself]
SamFred: And Buraka Sound System is portuguese not angolan and not really Kuduro
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Confusion in the lusosphere aside, I also stumbled across a version “Dança do Tchiriri,” last year’s #1 kuduro smash en France, that shows just how far the dance&music (the two inextricably linked) has spread beyond the streets of Luanda.
Senegal, Morocco, Mauritania, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Porto, Miami, Martinique, Guadeloupe, [French?] Guyana, Cape Verde, Marseille, Bordeaux — it’s a roll call of diasporic and post-colonial echoes: francophone enclaves in Africa and the Americas, major European immigrant hubs, and an emerging luso-network (Brazil curiously left out). It becomes abundantly clear from a video like this one that kuduro has resonated far beyond Luanda not just with bloggers and nu whirl connoisseurs, but the analogues of Angola: other African capitals, the cities where African immigrants congregate, the semi-colonies of African descent.
This is definitely kuduro far beyond the marketing capabilities of one Frenchman — no disrespect to Frédéric, to the contrary it’s encouraging to see it spread so far & wide. Lisbon is becoming an increasingly important node as lusophone music takes the stage, but Paris remains an essential hub for Africa and the Caribbean.
Another contender for “hit d’été 2009” (despite the above claiming it’s summer 2008) is “Mwangolé” (Umbundu for Angola) by Les Princes du Kuduro. Their MySpace claims a Paris/Luanda connection on the location and the about reads, “Puto Milagre & Manu Le Boss sont 2 jeunes issues des ghettos angolais Venus pour représenter les vraies origines du kuduro, les princes du kuduro comptent imposer leur style musical à la France et au monde… (Puto Milagre & Manu Le Boss are 2 youths from the Angolan ghetto who have come to represent the true origins of kuduro, the kuduro princes are bringing their musical styles to France and the world).”
Unlike the French-tinged “Danse avec moi Kuduro!” — where the language and lyrics de-emphasize the country of origin — it’s straight Angolan pride as the title suggests (see also the Angolan flag in the back of their car) in uncompromising Portuguese and a driving beat a bit harder than the kuduro I’m used to hearing. Who in turn is the intended audience? I know FG plays mostly in Paris proper. But Les Princes du Kuduro seem to be targeting more toward the banlieue, the kind of audience that would be in the Paris scene of the global dance video. In short, this strain of kuduro is aiming for the success of coupé-décalé, which of course is bolstered by the huge Ivorian population in France. But how big is the Angolan diaspora? A cursory search doesn’t reveal many details. And this is not a conceptual link, mind you. Not if Kuduro Coupé Décalé Stars Compilation has anything to say about it.
I know Guillaume was recently on his native soil. Perhaps he’s got a read on the situation sur la terre / sobre a terra.
Tags: angola, france, frédéric galliano, kuduro, lisbon, luanda, paris
nice post. coupe decale is much bigger than the Ivorian diaspora, but youre right that angolans might not have enough presence to get their sounds to crossover. Coupe Decale is pretty closely related to other west african music, and had local scenes popped up pretty quickly in the Congo, etc. It was huge when I lived in Senegal. plus, it actually originated in Paris, so it has a very globalbanlieue-tech sound.
Kuduro is a bit more distinctive, and doesn’t derive from a francophone country, so the possibility of huge pan-diasporic paris based success seems less easy. But it seems to be pretty successful so far, Guillaume says it crossed over. I’m inclined to agree..
I’m in Paris, and I’ve been surprised by how much Kuduro is in France / Paris. My first hint was in Spotify, where several of the kuduro compilations are in French. Might also have something to do with the fact that French wonderDJs Radio Clit put out their (short but heavy) kuduro mix - right after their awesome coupé decalé mix (these are now a few years old). Finally - the largest single foreign population in Ile-de-France (Paris and banlieus) is apparently Portuguese - so the Lusophone community is second only to the French community….
Thanks for the comments. Radioclit is worth mentioning, although I think a mix, however popular, is more of a gloss than the in-depth involvement of producing a kuduro album in French. My impression is still that there are two spheres here — Paris proper and banlieue. Especially in light of the Tchiriri global video, I am really curious about how/why kuduro has spread among this banlieue population. I’ve heard rumors of a raï-décalé fusion. Could coupé kuduro be next? Despite extreme physical isolation and lack of economic opportunities, the potential of the banlieue always surprises me.
That’s a good point about all the Portuguese in Ile-de-France. If it’s cool for the kids in Lisbon, why not among their contemporaries in Paris?
Hey guys,
So Kuduro has definitly crossed over in France as “dance of the summer” and it’s been a process in the making for the last 2 years. Check this entry for a link to a facebook video that shows white hair old people square dancing on Dança do Tchiriri: http://masalacism.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-kept-saying-that-kuduro-crossed-over.html
All right, now Kuduro’s fashion in France is actually not coming from Angolan, but Cap Verdien people. They are leading the scene in France and are providing most of the hype on the movement. After that, there’s a weird (same old) ideology of distinction of “we are the true ones, we are the originators, you guys just do shit” kind of vibe floating around from Angolan towards Cap Verdien. Galiano would not say that publicly but I know he kinda took this ideology as his own. I can’t go in details here, but they are the one pushing the sound now and the last few years.
Also Radioclit has absolutly NOTHING to do with this. Seriously, zero. Same with Buraka. This is grassroot success based on the fact that the Cap Verdien community in Paris and it’s suburbs is a big enough to make other communities follow. It’s also because it’s a dance as much as it’s a music and therefore it’s very fashionable in the club for 17 years old. Nothing to do with blogging or international hipsterism.
Finally, Coupé mix with Kuduro is already there. Check out: Normal Nada - Decale kuduro or also Dj Vielo’s Decale Cap Vert. This is just the beginning. All of this is based on the fact that white people dance clubs and carribean/african clubs are still very seperated in France. Or at least, there’s a strong network of carribean/african clubs throughout France. And like every where else, there playing the latest trend, which happens to be Kuduro now in France. And for the last few years, I’ve seen the name popping on the regular on the big fluo posters of the local african club in my medium/small size hometown of Orleans. Which never happened before.
Looking fwd to the rest of this discussion
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