THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 30, 1994 TAG: 9408010228
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Mark Mobley, Music critic
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
IN THE LATE '60s, a young African singer and songwriter popularized a new kind of dance music. He called it ``soukous,'' after the French word for shaking.
He still shakes today.
Today, Tabu Ley Seigneur Rochereau brings his Afrisa International Orchestra to Town Point Park. If a concert last Sunday in Washington, D.C. was any indication, no amount of heat, humidity or direct sunlight will stop listeners from dancing.
Tabu Ley's songs mix Latin styles with chiming, mesmerizing African guitars. The stage show is half James Brown, half Tom Jones - choreography on bouncy tunes followed by the romantic baritone of one of Africa's most popular singers.
Tabu Ley, 54, has written more than 2,000 songs and recorded dozens of albums. Though most of those have not been distributed outside Africa, he has enough of a global career to warrant keeping homes in Newark, N.J., Paris and his native Kinshasa, Zaire.
``I stay outside, but each year I go back,'' Tabu Ley said after Sunday's show in Georgetown. ``If I don't go back, I send musicians or bring musicians from Zaire. They bring new ideas, a new spirit from home.
``If you stay outside a long time without connection with your country, slowly you will lose your good spirit.''
But, he said, he will always anchor his business in the United States. ``The situation in Africa, in my country, is not very quiet. It is very difficult for us to work there because of (difficulty with) communications, transactions and telecommunications.''
He was sanguine about the turmoil in neighboring Rwanda. ``Even before the colonists came in Africa, there was fighting all the time. After the freedom in 1960, there was fighting again, big fighting, because there are only two tribes. In my country, we have maybe 800 tribes.''
But Zaire, led for three decades by strongman Mobutu Sese Seko, has its own political problems. Tabu Ley says he addresses these on his forthcoming album, ``Muzina.''
The title of the song ``Requisitoire'' translates as a prosecutor's closing argument. Tabu Ley explained, ``I call all the politicians in my country to sit together and find a way for our country to go forward. I call all of them by name. It's not easy to do that, but I did.''
Lyrics are especially important to Tabu Ley. While most African albums are issued in the U.S. without translations, Tabu Ley has insisted that his ``Muzina'' include English translations of the Lingala and French texts.
``We worked very hard,'' he said. ``All Americans will read this. They will discover what the soukous music is. It is not only the rhythm and the melody. It is also the poetry, the romance.''
Tabu Ley's career began with romance. At 14, he wrote ``Besame Muchacha'' (Kiss me, girl) for one of the leading African bands, Le Grand Kalle and African Jazz. It was his first hit.
``At that time there was no television; there was no good newspaper in Africa. Only records and radio in bar and club and cabaret. They thought at the time I was very old. They see me now - `It is not Rochereau! You look young!' ''
Born Tabu Pascal, he acquired his nickname from classmates amused by his history knowledge. When their teacher asked about Napoleon's generals, only Tabu knew the answer: Rochereau.
``I never made my life with other kids. Everybody wanted me to go to sing. If I go with the kids, `No, no! Don't go there!'
``Now I am enjoying staying a kid.''
At 19 he joined African Jazz. It included such future stars as saxophonist Manu Dibango, who had an international hit in 1973 with ``Soul Makossa'' and is still active today.
In 1963 Tabu Ley quit African Jazz to form his own band. In 1971 he took Afrisa International into Paris for two concerts at the famed Olympia and was given a hero's welcome when he returned to Zaire. Zairian musicians would soon make Paris the soukous center of the world.
His fellow players began calling him Seigneur, French for elder, as a sign of respect. In 1985 he made the classic album ``Omona Wapi'' (Shanachie) with the guitarist Franco, his longtime rival and sometime partner.
He was prolific by necessity.
``Every year I write, write,'' he said. ``A song was only one minute or two minutes. If we went to Europe for one week, I write 50 songs.''
Soukous already had elements of African music and the internationally popular rhumba. Tabu Ley added the James Brown-style stage show, with dancing by male and female backup singers.
Today the band includes two saxophones, two guitars, keyboard, bass and drums. Backup singers step out to perform lead vocals. The drummer Parigo doubles as ``animateur,'' a cross between a rapper and a square-dance caller, urging dancers on.
But Tabu Ley needs no encouragement. He hops forward during the guitar breaks in his songs, punches the air, struts with the backup singers.
``Zairian music is the most popular music in all of Africa,'' he said. ``If you sing only one song, everybody moves. It is very easy to move, very easy to be happy.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by Lawrence Jackson
Tabu Ley Rochereau has popularized a form of dance music called "
soukous", after the French word for shaking.
Black/white photo by Lawrence Jackson
Singer/Songwriter Tabu Ley Rochereau brings his Afrisa Interantional
Orchestra to Town Point Park in Norfolk at 7:30 and 9 p.m. Sunday as
part of the Blackbeard Pirate Jamboree.
by CNB