Anne-Marie Nzié

Anne-Marie Nzié (* 1931 or 1932 in Lolodorf -Bibia; † May 24, 2016 in Yaoundé ) was a Cameroonian singer who enjoyed great popularity in her homeland and a. as the "Golden Voice of Cameroon" and "Queen Mother of the Bikutsi " is called, as she is considered a pioneer of this musical style. She had a song repertoire in various national languages, which is considered to be stylistically versatile.

Career

Youth and early career

Anne-Marie Nzié grew up as the daughter of a Presbyterian pastor in Bibia, a town near the town of Lolodorf in southern Cameroon, and sang mainly in the local church choir as a child. At the age of twelve, she had a serious accident picking a mango , which resulted in a long hospital stay. During this time she learned from her brother Moïse, who was active as a musician under the name Cromwell , to play the Hawaiian guitar ; she also trained her singing voice. Already at the end of the 1940s she supported her brother with her guitar playing together. In 1954 they recorded their first single called "Ma Ba Nze" for the Congolese Opika - label on; others followed. After winning a government-sponsored guitar competition organized by the German guitarist and composer Siegfried Behrend , she also performed as a solo singer with her Hawaiian guitar in the second half of the 1950s, which was very unusual for a woman in Cameroon at the time was. She was only accompanied by a banjo player or later by the guitar player Emmanuel Ntonga, whose older brother she married in 1958.

1960 to 1981

On the occasion of Cameroon's independence in January 1960, Nzié appeared together with the Makossa pioneers Nelle Eyoum and Ebanda Manfred for the first President Ahmadou Ahidjo . In the next few years Nzié developed into one of the most popular singers in her country with her Bikutsi songs, although the Makossa was the dominant music genre in the sixties and seventies. In particular, her song "Dieu Merci", in which she thanked God for his support in the struggle for independence in Cameroon and other African countries, became very popular. As a result, there was a good relationship with the dictatorial ruling President Ahidjo, who attached great importance to patriotic music, while musicians who were critical of the government were often exposed to censorship and reprisals and sometimes moved abroad. Ahidjo also sent Nzié to various international music events as the cultural ambassador of her home country. In addition, she was the only woman who was allowed to record for the local Africambience label in Douala , where the stars of the makossa music style, Manu Dibango and Francis Bebey , also recorded for a time. In 1968 she signed a recording contract in Paris with the French label Pathé Marconi , which produced three of her albums. On this occasion she also took part in the recordings of a charity EP for the World Food Organization, on which artists such as Gilbert Bécaud and Miriam Makeba presented various interpretations of the song "Le Bateau Miracle".

This was followed by appearances at the major pan-African music festivals PANAF, 1969 in Algiers , and FESTAC , 1977 in Lagos . From 1979 she was a member of the Cameroonian National Orchestra.

1982 to 1999

After the second president of Cameroon, Paul Biya , came to power in 1982 , the Bikutsi music style was strongly promoted. In 1984 Nzié's album Liberté was recorded . On this was an updated version of her hit "Dieu Merci" with the song of the same name, which she dedicated to Biya, who had to fight off a coup attempt in the same year. The song, which once again thematized the independence of Cameroon, developed into an unofficial anthem for the annual independence celebrations in the following decades. But the opposition also used the song several times. For example, a few years later - with a different text and against the will of the pro-government artist - he was used by the opposition party SDF around John Fru Ndi in the election campaign against the government.

Despite the success, Nzié withdrew from the music business. When she was threatened with impoverishment in the mid-1990s, her radio journalist friend René Ayina organized a few concerts in 1996, which met with a great response. In 1998 she finally released her first album in fourteen years , with the participation of singer Coco Mbassi (* 1969), Béza Ba Dzo , on which she combined elements of the Bikutsi style of music with influences from jazz , blues and Latin American music . In the next few months she toured a. a. through France and Germany and performed, for example, at the world music festival Musiques Métisses in Angoulême, France, and at the Moers Festival .

2000 until today

In 2008, on the occasion of her 60th stage anniversary, she was honored with a series of events on behalf of the President in her home country and received by the Prime Minister. She was also given a house in her home village and a car . Already in 2001 the Cameroonian authorities had given her a cash prize in recognition of her life's work as an artist and given her a house in Yaoundé after she, along with politicians Josepha Mua and Gwendoline Burnley, became one of the three “women of the 20th century “Cameroon was chosen.

In 2009, Pascal Onana, a long-time companion who had accompanied her as a guitar player for thirty years, died in 2009. In 2010 Nzié announced that he would record a new album. In the same year Nzié presented her song "Liberté" again at various concerts on the occasion of the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of Cameroon's independence.

Discography (selection)

Solo albums

• Liberté (1985, Pathé Marconi)
• Béza Ba Dzo (1998, indigo)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Article Anne Marie Nzié parmi les femmes du cinquantenaire  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from March 10, 2011 on www.musiki-cm.com  
2. ^ ^{A b} Mathieu Talla, Serge Amani: Les grandes pionnières du Cameroun (Ed 2007) . Editions Cognito, ISBN 978-9956-412-08-2 , pp. 251 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
3. ↑ Anne-Marie Nzié: the Golden voice of bikutsi music has died ( Memento of the original from May 26, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ^ ^{A b c} Francis B. Nyamnjoh, Jude Fokwang: Entertaining Repression: Music and Politics in Postcolonial Cameroon . in: African Affairs , No. 104/415, Oxford University Press 2005, pp. 251-274
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Article A 77 ans, Anne-Marie Nzié, "la voix d'or du Cameroun", toujours dans le rythme on www.mediaterranee.com of March 13, 2010
6. ^ ^{A b c} Frank Tenaille: Music Is the Weapon of the Future: Fifty Years of African Popular Music . Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago 2002, ISBN 1-55652-450-1 , pp. 202 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
7. ↑ Archive page on the artists of the Moers Festival 1999  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i-8OsusoPQ