Les Melodies du Mboa, the history of Cameroonian urban music premieres on TV5Monde

Telling the story of Cameroonian urban music in 85 minutes is the challenge of the Cameroonian director Yannick Mindja who signs with Les melodies du Mboa his first feature documentary film. An immersion in the long and sinuous history of this music which from the beginning is considered as a music of brigands, rebels, but which today has almost beaten the pawn to classical Cameroonian musical rhythms such as Makossa, Bikutsi or Benskin. The film will be broadcasted on 25th December in prime time on the channel Tv5Monde.

Through interviews with Cameroonian pioneers of this musical style (Krotal, Louis Tsoungui, Franky Ongodo, Shamak, etc), Yannick Mindja takes us to discover the history of this music with the many anecdotes and historical discoveries it entails. The film gives itself the mission to revive the memory of this music which was once frowned upon and which had no media support. This situation did not prevent many young people who were passionate about the music at the time from getting involved, creating memorable works and gathering thousands of young people against all odds for mythical events that they organised without any outside help. This is how great groups (Ak Sang, Bantou Po si, Bantou Klan, C-minaire, etc) and big names (Krotal, Ra-syn, Koppo, Valsero, X-Zafrane, etc) were born.

Les melodies du Mboa, beyond almost 30 years of urban music that the film tries to tell, it is also a lot of music, a lot of video clips that create nostalgia for a certain era. The film team has managed to find a number of archive images that give weight to the work. The film finds all its interest in a context where the history of major African social and cultural movements is difficult to tell or is sometimes told by foreigners with all the approximate interpretations that this may entail. The documentary Les melodies du Mboa had its first Cameroonian release in 2019 at the Goethe Institute in Yaounde and is now distributed internationally by the Patou Films company, which made the film Roger Milla, La légende (2014) directed by Alain Fongue.

If the film manages to captivate by the quality of actors, the choice of music, the quality of the image, the film has some limits on the narrative level. The director stays in his comfort zone and takes no risks, the story holds but does not surprise. Perhaps a deliberate bias to stay in something politically correct. The musical flow of the work manages to make you forget some details, you end up having a good time full of nostalgia. The work will certainly be much appreciated by purists and other fans of Cameroonian urban music. The film will be broadcast for its international premiere on the Tv5Monde channel on 27 December 2020 at 9 pm and will be re-broadcast on 04 December 2021 at 1.25 pm. Two appointments not to be missed.

Rostand Wandja