Hommage a Zanzibar

Awesome Tapes from Africa once again breathe new life into an album that was almost lost to time with their latest release. Here we are offered the chance to hear the energetic 1989 debut album from Cameroonian bikutsi star Gibraltar Drakus, available for the first time digitally.

Bikutsi, which translates to ‘beat the earth’, developed from the traditional stomping dance of the Beti people of Cameroon. Bikutsi is relentless music, the beats charge along in a fast 6/8 rhythm, never giving a dancer the chance to come up for air. By the late 1980s it had supplanted makossa and soukous on the airwaves, largely thanks to the group Les Têtes Brûlées, of which Drakus was the youngest member. In fact, this debut album was a tribute to another member of the group, Drakus’ mentor, guitarist Théodore Zanzibar Epeme, who died mysteriously in 1987.

What the four tracks here lack in variety is made up for in spirit and vigour. The guitar lines sparkle, it's an almost pizzicato sound made by damping the strings of the guitar with a strip of foam – an innovation Zanzibar introduced to the sound. The music on Hommage a Zanzibar feels delightfully dated in its electronic drum hits which drive the music on… and on… and on… It's fun, if not exhausting, stuff.