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African music meets China - Assiko and coupe decale

Africa meet China.
African music meet Chinese. :-D

A couple of years ago, a friend showed me a video of a Chinese man singing Makossa songs. Zhen Ping Liu, popularly known as Liu de Karmer to his fans was the first ever and lone Chinese Makossa singer.
The name of the song is Assiko chinois, pretty good :-). Some friends joked that he probably wasn't him singing the song and someone else was doing voice over, but who really does that these days?

Watch the video below


He's learnt pretty well, doing the dances, etc. Assiko is a popular dance from the South of Cameroun. The word comes from Assi meaning earth/ground and koo meaning foot.

Sadly, Liu de Karmer passed away January 13 in 2006.
The Douala based musician had collapsed and died at a private clinic at Bonaberi, Douala, where he had gone for medical attention. He had previously been diagnosed with cardiac problems at the Laquintinie Hospital.

It's not just been the many Chinese people in Africa taking to our music, apparently, there are a lot of Chinese influences in African music these days. In the Coupe Decale movement, there is a bunch of Decale Chinois (which may be a music type) of its own, incorporating 'kung-fu' and others into the sounds and videos. The Coupe Decale movement is spreading all over Africa, especially in the French-speaking countries.
The bass-line in these songs that is played is known as Chinese scale (minor third, major seventh).
See some videos for yourself.

Watch a Coupe decale video in Shikomoro from Comoros

Watch another Coupe decale Chinois video, complete with kung-fu and Asians

This kid must be watching too much Jet Li and Journey to the West

People in Ghana would also remember Ex-doe (of Daavi medekuku fame) who once released a song dubbed Twi Chinese (Hiplife), using popular Chinese sounds to rap. It didn't become very popular so that influence died out pretty fast.