For his new album “La Légende Black”, Alpha Diallo, aka Black M, intends to go down in history. He drew from the repertoire of Guinean music the fabulous rhythmic-dancing classical of Mory Kanté: “yèkè yèkè”. With this song, he rakes wide. He remixed with remarkable brilliance this stainless tube with rap sauce. A delight. It’s clear: Black M has, at first glance, “Eyes bigger than the world” (2014). A ban for “The Black Legend”!
Yèkè Yèkè: a musical feast
Do we know Yèkè Yèkè? I think so. Isn’t it that irresistibly dancing tube from the late ’80s that sold five million copies? Apparently, our parents were serious about this song. He rocked our childhood. Acoustics: n’goni, kora, African percussions. The sound: Mory Kanté’s warm, powerful and well-stamped voice, which, when raised, provokes legitimate enthusiasm in the audience. And when the singers take up the chorus, a miracle happens. A deep emotion fills the whole room. We press, we push, we bump, we move our feet, we snap our fingers and a powerful force, almost demonic, makes us guincher. I have a great memory of all that. But, time passes and it has become so sad to see this beautiful prodigy of the mind sleeping in the discotheque of oblivion and taking dust.
We’re going to be artistic
I wondered what a young French rapper woke could gain by exhuming a Mandingo song from three decades ago. Lack of inspiration? Maybe so. Challenge? Or want to reconnect to its origins? It could be. This title, moreover, was sung three years before the birth of the artist – He was born in 1984 in Paris. It was to misunderstand Black M. On this title, an ode to love, he devoted himself to a real work of musical “deconstruction-reconstruction”. He tried with some success to put an old song back on the page. Black M gave bite and a dancing look to yèkè yèkè. While maintaining the framework of this song, he brings new voices, those of two mezzo-soprani like Amaya and Maysha. Each of its two singers each bring a particular color to this title.
‘On va yèkè’: a wonderfully rhythmic melody
If we believe the stats on online download platforms, and mainly on Youtube (639 K views! in one day), success will not be long in coming. The remix has gained in power and modernity. This tube is about to become the tube of summer 2022. I myself have tasted the rhythms of this classical music, and even if my opinion is nothing prophetic, I say, this remix has something special: it has lost nothing of its nostalgic attraction, of this festive air that we savored in the first melodies. Black M has proposed to condiment this pasteurized tube with sweet spice rap. The former of the assault sexion group has concocted a beautiful tribute to the old dinosaur of Guinean music. He added the varnish of a modern rhythm while keeping the African sounds of the song. When we hear Black M’s first notes “On va yèkè”, we feel, from the first seconds, a need to externalize, to let go of all the heaviness that stifles us. Let’s hope that this excellent remix will allow Black M to enter the legend.
