Flashmag November 2020 www.flashmag.net
............30...............
Michel Alibo, Hugh Masekela, Paco Sery, Salif Keita in session Studio Johanna Paris
Guillaume Ajavon
In Paris, the young photographer tries his hand at packaging, short weddings and baptisms, publishes his first reports in the press. Bill Akwa Bétotè will be passionate about the African music scene ...
"The arrival of the left in power marked a social and cultural change in France", recalls the photographer, "which imposed and exploded the notion of culture. This emulation was not just due to what was happening in the communities. Political and social work allowed the emergence of places, and the arrival in Paris of artists identified by the cultural network abroad, especially in Africa ".
Among the images exhibited, Fela Kuti's first concert in Paris in 1981, at Studio Gabriel, with his son Femi at his side on the saxophone. Bill collaborated with Le Matin de Paris at the time, with Liberation and with pan-African media such as Amina, Bingo, Jeune Afrique and Africa International. With Philippe Conrath, Rémy Kolpa-Kopoul, Jacques Matinet and the "indispensable" Franck Tenaille, they "crisscross" Parisian concert halls, hang out at Farafina, in the Senegalese and Congolese maquis. “We started from the North, La Cigale and L'Elysée Montmartre, before descending via Rue Blanche, to the New Morning, then Le Rex, L'Eldorado, Le Palace and L'Opéra Night in the Grands Boulevards district. , La Chapelle des Lombards in Bastille. And on Friday, at La Main Bleue in Montreuil. It was the start of the weekend. "
In 1985, Miriam Makeba was invited by the Hauts-de-Seine General Council to the inauguration of a Nelson Mandela square in Nanterre. "She was supposed to give a speech, but she said I'll sing." Another moment engraved by the photographer that can be found in the exhibition "Paris 80 - Pulsations". Bill Akwa also presents photos of Manu Dibango, with Ray Lema, Lokua Kanza, Guem, Baaba Maal. Beyond the anecdote, and with hindsight, the 1980s are a great moment for the emergence of this music in the world. When Mamadou Konté, manager of Salif Keïta at the time, signed in Paris with Chris Blackwell of the Island label for his first album, Soro, to be released in 1987, it was once again he who immortalized the event.
Referring to this time Bill Akwa Bétotè said, “It was the birth of a bond between the cultures of the south. The 28 rue Dunois was a high place of the confrontation between jazz, free-jazz and African music. There was also the American Center. And