Salegy is the best-known and most widely exported dance pop music of Madagascar. It began in northern coastal towns like Majunga, Nosy Be and Diego Suarez (Antsiranana). Salegy is driving, 12/8 music with clear affinities to mainland Afropop styles in places like Zimbabwe and Mozambique. It is characterized by gently rippling guitar work, organ or keyboards and sometimes accordion, and powerful vocal harmonies.

The style originated with Malagasy folk songs, often sung during moonlight feasts. But as in the birth sagas of so many 20th century roots pop styles, pioneering musicians also needed to get an education in foreign music. As international pop styles, and music technology--guitars, etc--seeped into this remote, local scene, salegy pop emerged, and was being widely recorded by the 1950s and 60s. It evolved to feature rich, harmonized vocals and chiming guitar lines locked, restless, animated 12/8 rhythms. There is also a calmer, more romantic genre of the music, known as malesa.

During the 1970s, the island's Disco-Mad label produced hot-selling salegy singles by artists like Jean Feddy, Abdallah, Jaojoby, and one of the style's originators, Tianjama with his group Orchestre Liberty. As the economy and recording industry declined in the 1980s, there was a dry spell in salegy recordings, but the groups kept playing. Early 90s salegy recordings tended to feature drum machine production, which very much sold the sound short. But things have improved markedly of late. Mars, the record company goliath, now produces excellent full-band recordings, with rocking live rhythm sections and sound quality never heard before.

Younger salegy singers like the charismatic Lego--half-brother of Malagasy pop star Rossy--and Dr J.B. with his slamming band the Jaguars are producing some of the most progressive work. Veterans like Jaojoby, Tianjama and Mily Clement are still producing great music as well, and there are new names coming up all the time. As salegy has come of age, it has incorporated influences from Congo music, South African pop and even the emerging tsapika sound in southern Madagascar. But it's still instantly recognizable as the island's quintessential dance pop style.

By the late 1990s, salegy had more or less arrived as the national dance-pop music. But the picture is complicated. One of Madagascar's disturbing paradoxes is the public indifference to the island nation's rich traditional and roots pop music. Salegy bands have packed local clubs in northern towns like Majunga, Antsiranana (Diego Suarez), and Nosy Be for decades, but it's only fairly recently that these bands have been well recorded by Mars, the country's all-powerful recording and distribution company. Where once there were crusty cassettes of salegy acts backed by tinny drum machines, now there are excellent locally produced CDs of well-arranged music played by kicking bands like Dr. JB and the Jaguars, Mily Clement, Tianjama, Dens, Bilo, and Lego. Jaojoby has recorded his recent albums in France, perhaps setting the standard the local industry now strives to match.
When Afropop Worldwide visited Tana in 2001, we didn't find much salegy on the radio, even less on television, and seeing live salegy requires research and good timing. Although, Lego at Le Glacier, a sleazy but atmospheric dive downtown, was a regular event. But given the improving production values of salegy recordings, that may be changing. Young bands continue to press the envelope of the music's drive and complexity. Despite its lack of industry support, salegy shows no signs of dying out!

Contributed by: Banning Eyre