Gnonnas Pedro long in tongues

To say he was one of the great voices of West Africa is an understatement. More than twenty years after his untimely death, Beninese Gnonnas Pedro remains an essential reference for aficionados of Latin versions as well as for lovers of Afro-funk groove. Because before becoming the celebrated singer of Africando, a pan-African combo in Latin style, Pierre Kuassivi Gnonnas Sossou – the civil name of the Cotonou native in 1943 – was one of the renovators of the traditional music of his ancestral region, the "agbadja" style that he quickly invested and reinvented, impacting it with soundtracks from the diaspora across the Atlantic, but also with emerging styles in Paris in the sixties.

Just listen to the title that opens the double album entitled The Man Who Sings All African Languages – alternating with ease between Fon, Mina, Yoruba, Spanish, French and even English: Pas de pétard aux entournures r'n'b yéyé precedes Tembleque , a typical salsero title, and a funk instrumental called l'Indomptable Gnonnas Pop , before the same