Photo Credits: Image Courtesy Of Calabash Music
Ray Lema
A gifted pianist, guitarist, and music writer, Ray Lema was born in Zaire. He received keyboard training and exposure to classical piano repertoire and began playing guitar with local musicians.
Ray Lema eventually ended up residing in Paris, where he began to build an extensive discography of artistic collaborations that blend traditional African rhythm with modern harmonies and instrumentation. He has a passion for cultivating blend as an art. To launch into audacious rapprochements and impossible implants is second nature to him.
In 1974, the Zaire government asked him to set up a National Ballet, which would be the mirror of the country's ethnical diversity; he was passionate about the experience. In 1979, the Rockefeller Foundation invited him to the United States, where he learned to master the sophisticated technology of recording studios. In Paris he got carried away on the wave of musical activity of this cultural crossroads frequented by more and more Africans.
After four albums Koteja ('82), Kinshasa-Washington DC-Paris ('82) then Médecine ('85) and Bwana Zoulou Gang ('88), he gains international stature thanks to a contract with Island: Nangadeef ('89), then Gala ('90). Always ready to take part in multiple adventures, he participated in Tarn Tarn for Ethiopia, collaborated with Stewart Copeland, wrote the music for Black Mic Mac and brought his experience to the music of the Cape Verdeans Finacon, to a show by Alain Laugenie dedicated to Rimbaud, to a creation with Les Voix Bulgares and another with Joachim Kühn for his albums Ray Lerna/Professeur Stefanov and Euro African Suite. Since, he has released such masterworks as "Green Light/> ('96) and Tout Partout" ('94) but no one could be compare to another.
Regarding his work on his recording SAFI, done with Gnaoua musicians, Ray Lema says, "My life-long dream is to play with traditional musicians without asking them to change. I am the one who must change?"
— Courtesy Calabash Music
