Coco Mbassi

Coco Mbassi is an extraordinary young lady who loves making people be happy through composing and singing unforgettable melodies. She is Cameroonian, but principally based in Paris. Winner of the 1996 Radio France Internationale Decouvertes Prize in the African music category, she is both an author and a composer.

With a postgraduate degree in translation she began singing lead and chorus in the African gospel choir Les Cherubins and as a backing vocalist, she collaborated with various artists and bands like Sixun, Salif Keita, Toure Kunda, Oumou Sangare, Manu Dibango, Ray Lema, Demis Roussos, Nino Ferrer, Nicoletta, Jocelyne Beroard (Kassav), the Symphonic Gospel with Clyde Wright of the Golden Gate Quartet and the Symphonic Orchestra Colonne. Her collaboration extends to some contemporary and classical projects like Memoires d'Eau presented in the famous Auvers/Oise classical festival (under the direction of Michel Piquemal) or Le Manacuba, composed by Luc Le Masne and performed at the Cuban National Theatre in La Havana.

The words to the songs of her mother tongue, Duala, are often found combined with jazzy, minimalist and classical arrangements, where vocal polyphony and African rhythm continue to play an important role. Coco Mbassi composes her own pieces and writes the words. Although her husband — who teaches as a classical double-bassist — exercises a strong influence on her music writing, in her childhood she was permanently exposed at home to a wide variety of Händel, Makossa and jazz big bands.

The central theme of her songs is the everyday aspects of human life like love, friendship, family life and a profound Christian religiosity, which Coco has had plenty opportunity to celebrate at masses in a free Christian community in Paris with an abundance of music and songs. Coco's songs tell stories often based on personal life experiences that she recalls. It's these stories and feelings that make her songs what they are today, and a great deal of these memories are made up of those old sepia-colored (black and white) photographs from home. —Courtesy Calabash Music