Blick Bassy will release a new album, 1958, on March 8, following his acclaimed 2015 release, Akö. 1958 is a defiant tribute to the heroes who fought and died for the independence of Bassy's native Cameroon. A tender and soulful selection of songs, the album is sung in Bassa, Blick’s ancestral language. Bassy is trailing the album announcement with lead single ‘Ngwa’, which arrives via this stunning video. Blick will return for his first UK show in two years at London’s St Pancras Old Church on March 11.

1958 is dedicated to the memory of Ruben Um Nyobé, the anti-colonialist leader of the Popular Union of Cameroon (UPC), who was shot dead by French troops on September 13 1958, two years before the country became independent. The UPC had been campaigning for fifteen years, during which time many people died, something which has been subtly annihilated from history by the French and Cameroonian state until recently.

Um Nyobé, like Blick, was from the Bassa region and ethnic group, known, after many years of displacement and exploitation by European traders to be anti-colonialist. Blick wants to shed light on his story, saying; “In school we studied the French version of what happened. The way I learned it in the books was that they were agitators, troublemakers. Which is wrong. Um Nyobé was in this movement hidden in the mountains, organising the Cameroonian People’s Union, and the truth about what happened has never been out.”

The new video for ‘Ngwa’ has been shot in the breathtaking scenery of South Africa’s Lesotho, with direction from fast-rising South African talent Tebogo Malope (also named Tebza). A recipient of the Cannes Gold Lion prize, Malope was also recently behind the ambitious video for Kwesta track ‘Spirit’, which has clocked over four million views to date. A meditation on the relationship between present-day Cameroon and its former French colonisers, Malope’s affecting visuals capture Blick embodying not only the spirit of Um Nyobé the man, but also the Cameroonian nation, and their intrinsic cultural identity.

Speaking about what drove him to write ‘Ngwa’ - which translates in English to ‘my friend’ - for Um Nyobé, Blick says; “Ngwa, I wanted to pay tribute to your fight, our fight, but also to your philosophy, where the values of equality, antiracism, anti xenophobia, serve emancipation and fulfilment for every human being.”

1958 track listing

Ngwa

Nguiyi

Kundé

Woñi

Mpodol

Lipém

Sango Ngando

Maqui

Pochë

Bès Na Wé

Where We Go

For Chelou, it’s been a steady yet unhurried build up to his first album.  The result, an intoxicating set of folk-blues, beats and Chelou’s hauntingly vocal, is now set for release on his own label Concrete Dog via AWAL on April 26. Chelou’s beautifully blurry, hypnotic sound isn’t reflective of his earliest influences - Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, Nick Cave – but when it came to songwriting, “morose acoustic music,” won out. “I’m hopeless at parties,” he concedes. “I want to put Leonard Cohen on! I like anything in the A minor key and I love a good melody.”

If the Chelou sound is a blissful brand of melancholy it’s rooted as much in the 21st century. Dance music was a staple when he was younger with its electronics and ballad-esque vocals having its own impact on this musical output.

Fittingly producer / DJ Maya Jane Coles has been a key mentor – Chelou featured on two of her tracks ‘Believe’ and ‘Darkside’ and she was the main collaborator in shaping and making Out Of Sight along with Cam Blackwood (George Ezra, London Grammar, Florence & The Machine) and LOXE.

 “If the album has a theme, it stems from a place of frustration” he explains. “Like, how can I be a musician when I’m bartending forty hours a week, or digging holes?” I realised, after we finished the album, that many songs had similar words and concepts, like going home and trying to get back to a good place.”

Chelou translates to ‘shady’ or ‘hidden’ in French and the man born Adam Gray has “spent a long time not revealing much, but it wasn’t exactly intentional,” he says. “I originally wanted to be a songwriter and not a stage performer, or even a singer.  I began to create a world outside of my everyday existence, starting with the name Chelou, and once it all started happening, it fit my natural personality.”

Live Dates

MAY 3rd - London, Jazz Cafe

MAY 25th - Bristol, Love Saves The Day