Photo Credits:
Manou Gallo
Until recently, few knew Manou Gallo, other than from her being the former bassist for Zap Mama. Now she's out on her own, making her own music, which mixes funk, R&B and rhythms of West Africa. The energy of her music takes a page from traditional African music but also owes a lot to funk and soul, because Manou loves mélanges. With Dida, Manou Gallo steps out of the shadows of Zap Mama. She uses harmonies and her vocals in Dida, a language of Ivory Coast, her country, French and English, with rhythms, heat, colors and her magnificent sensitivity.
Manou's story begins in Divo. A small city in the central-western region of Ivory Coast, the cradle of the roots of the Djiboi people. This is where Manou Gallo was born on August 31,1972. Raised by her grandmother, who looked after her like her own daughter, Manou is a rather autonomous person. "At this time, I was living like a little savage. I was helping cultivating the fields, drawing water. I wasn't going to school, but my grandmother taught me traditions, respect, and values'.
It is easy to imagine her, Manou, wearing tiny shorts as all clothes she had, her big smiling eyes, her head full of lice, climbing the mango trees and running freely in the alleys of Divo. While waiting for her friends after school, Manou was beating the rhythm, banging on her legs, tapping her feet, marking the tempo with her voice: the rhythm is her obsession.
"When I was a little girl, I was already going from backyard to backyard, these places where each family comes together everyday to cook, sing, in one word to live together. I was meeting my girlfriends and sooner or later we inevitably started singing, dancing, beating iron boxes". In Ivory Coast playing music is a tradition, for funerals, a birth, or to wish welcome to newly born twins, but also for any event of everyday life. In Divo, life follows the traditional Djiboi rhythms. On a material point of view, life is just basic, but full of warmth and you live it feeling good in your head.
It is precisely during funerals for which the appointed drum player never showed that Manou first spectacularly impressed her audience. Always dragging a stool behind her, she goes towards these big drums, the talking drums (atombra in Dida, the language of the Djiboi people). She climbs up to the height of the braced skin and starts beating it; it's amazing how she masters it. In the heart of the village of Bada, which is the most ancient part of Divo and where traditions have remained alive, people are just amazed.
"Everybody was really astonished, and a bit shocked also since women are not allowed to touch these drums. In some extent, they were taking me for a witch. My grandmother was supporting me and on this occasion, she explained to me that this was a gift, transmitted to me trough a dream her own mother had and who died the day I was born. When at the age of eight, I was getting seated to play drums during this ceremony, I could feel the power of my ancestors on my finger tips."
Years go by and Manou grows up. Still in Divo, she sells oranges and develops every day her ability to master the rhythm. "My whole life was already written in Divo: It seemed that there was no need to go off the rails. However,…'. Each summer in Ivory Coast, meetings are organized during which participants from all the places in the country come together. The objective is to create a sort of artistic competition spirit amongst the young people: this event is called Vacances-cultures (culture holidays). In 1984, at the age of 12, Manou takes part in her first show. It is also the first time she leaves Divo. The show that is organized with other children of the small city is inspired of Manou's story. The show describes the life of this little witch who receives the power to play drums. The play is a big success.
Each time Manou is on stage, the audience is amazed and admires her. The Mayor of Divo regularly invites her when he receives guests. "Play, Manou, play and give the best of yourself." And Manou gives all she has from the bottom of her heart. At the time, the son of the Mayor was managing a band called 'Woya' playing music from Ivory Coast. The musicians, originally from Abidjan, came to set up in Divo where they show that one can play music and farm the land.
"In '85, I was invited to join 'Woya.' I was the little one who was opening the concert with the talking drums. During the rest of the show I would just beat a bell. This is however when I have discovered modern instruments: the drums, the bass, and the guitar with the person who would become my spiritual father and who would play a major role in my life. This person is Marcelin Yacé, musician and conductor of the band."
Very soon, Woya becomes famous in the whole Western African region. From '85 to '89, the band is intensively touring (in Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Benin) and records four albums. In the meantime, Manou is acquiring experience. When the band dissolves, Manou follows Marcelin Yacé to Abidjan. He takes her under his wing, and gives her her first bass, teaches her how to record sounds in his studio for three years. 'I was only thinking about music. I only had one objective: becoming a full musician, and I was investing all my energy'
From 1993 to 1996, Marcelin sends her to sharpen her artistic skills in the pan-African village of Ki-Yi-Mbock, where she joins a theatre troupe, learns dancing and takes part in the recording of a new CD produced by Ray Lema. In 1992, during the MASA event in Abidjan, an international market presenting art creations from everywhere in Africa, Manou meets Michel De Bock, tour manager and lighting engineer for the Zap Mama band. They met each other several times in the Kid-Yi village and got along very well.
Manou and Michel got along so well that when Michel heard that Marie Duane, leader of Zap Mama, was looking for a bassist for her band, he immediately thought of the young girl from Ivory Coast and had her come to Belgium. Manou Gallo landed on January 3, 1997, at 8 a.m. with her bass and djembé. Well, she would have to fight for her spot, because Marie Daulne returned from Indonesia and already had views on a musician. "My arrival in Brussels was a real shock. A temperature shock. It was snowing. I was dead cold at the rehearsals, sticking to my bass and to the heater but I knew it was a unique opportunity that wouldn't show twice! I already knew the music of the band, I had to give the best of myself, and this is what I did during the trials, which finally lasted three days." Three days during which Manou played bass, drums and djembé. She sang, danced to warm up, and after these three days, Marie and the other members of the band welcome her in Zap Mama. That year, with her first salary, Manou offers herself a belated New Year's present: a brand new bass guitar.
It has been many years since Manou has been on tour, traveling the world to play Zap Mama's music. In 1999, she joined, for a few concerts, the Tambours de Brazza, where she is the only girl.
"Here in Europe, I have learned to know the openness of mind, the mix of cultures and music," she said. Based in Brussels, Manou appreciates the diversity of this mixed city. But deep inside of her, Manou has kept a little melody in her head, straight from Divo.
"When I go back to my country, I rediscover the colors of the sounds and the rhythms which have, during my childhood, reared in my ears'. This has certainly encouraged her to write her own texts, mixing French, English and Dida language to say the things as they come, to rebel or to keep Marcelin Yace's light alive, the one who has brought her up here.
Her texts follow the music she has always had in her, but she has added to it the influences she has acquired.
"The music I wanted to create is a mix of all the steps of my life: my story and my background have inspired me." To shape up her music, Manou took another big step in 2001: She creates her own band with musicians who are also friends. This is a bit like when, as a little girl, she was getting all her girlfriends together and distributing roles during improvised concerts in the backyards of her city of origin. And today, together with her band, The Djiboi, Manou intends to spread on the radio waves the music of Divo.
— Courtesy Calabash Music