Surface de Réparation – Lapiro de Mbanga, 1987

Musician and activist, Lapiro de Mbanga was undeniably a committed Cameroonian artist. Indeed, it was his song « Constitution constipée » that earned him the wrath of the Biya administration, sending him to prison before his exile to the United States, where he died in 2014. For those who know the area, in the heyday of the dead cities, we used to bump into him when we went for a drink at Ma-Thé, near the train, in Njombé, and the least we can say is that he didn’t mince his words. In his songs, his distinctive pidjin – mbolo talk – hit the nail on the head as he denounced all kinds of injustice. Surface de réparation, released in 87/88, is one of his hits, and for the occasion Ndinga Man surrounded himself with the almost usual cream of the crop on these recordings. He is joined by Aladji Touré, Guy Bilong, Jean-Claude Naimro, Jean-Pierre Coco and others.