Makendia – Gaoulé 75, 1975

🇲🇶🎸🥁🎹🔥 Paris, 1975. A band of young Martinicans living in the capital wants to share their culture in all its richness, and calls itself Gaoulé 75, after Martinique’s 1717 revolt. Leading the group is Jean-Marc Monnerville, a singer and guitarist soon to be known as Kali. On this first record, Makendia, recorded at Studio LSB and produced by Victor Hilaricus for Dayvis Song Records, he invents a kind of Caribbean folk-rock, blending percussion with the flashes of a guitar caught between rock and funk (Vie Co A and the title track Makendia). Cadences and biguines (Elucubration 75), soul ballads and funk sit side by side, before compas arrives on side B with Pa Oublie Folklore. We also come across Jean-Claude Naimro’s organ and piano, long before Kassav’. Gaoulé left only this one album, but Kali had plenty more up his sleeve: 6ème Continent in 1979, then Racines and the Eurovision Song Contest in 1992. A little treasure!