Afropop Worldwide's April 2001 visit to Madagascar turned up a lot of great music, much--though far from all--of which can be heard in the three programs we are producing based on the trip. Our second program focuses on new artists, one all-but-forgotten artist, and the island's two major pop music styles, salegy and tsapika. This feature provides a little more background on these subjects.

New Artists

Pop singer Samoela is currently one of the top-selling musicians in Madagascar. His song "Sexy Girl" was a big hit, heard often as the Afropop team moved around the city of Antatnanarivo (Tana). Musically, Samoela falls somewhere between the roots music that has mostly been exported from Madagascar, and the more derivative mainstream pop that dominates the airwaves within the country. This song, though, has transcendent power because, while it sounds like a titillating love song, it actually takes on a very serious subject: the lives of sex workers on the island. Madagascar has a very low level of HIV/AIDS infection by African standards, and to cynical hawkers of flesh, that is a big selling point. But the lives of sex workers here are fraught with the same tragedy and danger as elsewhere, and Samoela struck a deep chord with this song.

For Afropop, one of the great discoveries in the realm of pop music was Malagasy reggae man Sammy Rastafanahy. The coastal city of Majunga, where Sammy spent his boyhood, is a hotbed of the high-energy, African influenced pop music called salegy. So music was already a big part of his life when Sammy moved to the capital Antananarivo to attend high school in the late 1970s. He was writing songs about things he saw around him, but his main claim to fame in those days was as a dancer. Sammy started out dancing to traditional music from Mozambique, across the water, but before long, he became a champion rock 'n roll dancer.

In the early '80s, Sammy went abroad to study in Moscow. He recalls a teacher there asking him, "Sammy, why are you going to school? You have to sing." He did in fact sing often at parties in Russia, and when he returned to Tana in the early '90s, he worked hard at writing songs. He formed his first real band in 1994, but given the difficulty of getting music recorded in Madagascar, it took him some years to actually release his first cassette, Reggae Feombahoaka.

When he did get the chance to record, Sammy invested all the money he could find and hired the best musicians, including Toty on bass, ace salegy guitarist Jean-Brice, one of Madagascar's most celebrated saxophonist/flautists Seta, and the incomparable traditional musician Rajery on the tubular harp, the valiha. Sammy told Afropop, "I have to use the valiha because it's the roots of the Malagasy people, and salegy because I'm from the north. And then I mix in the reggae because I'm a rastaman." The cassette is an adventurous blend of styles and sounds, quite unlike anything else out there. Especially interesting is the way the band marries salegy and reggae rhythms.

"I sing about small people," says Sammy. His debut recording contains songs about kids who forego schooling to beg on the streets, about mob justice, about the struggle of Malagasy workers to support their families on diminishing salaries, and about the way young people are losing respect for their elders.

Despite the odds, Sammy is determined to press on and create new music, next time incorporating the music of southern Madagascar as well. Sammy Rastafanahy's music is not yet available outside Madagascar, but Afropop is convinced that it's just a matter of time.

Afropop also learned about two superb salegy artists on the trip, Lego (featured in our first Adventure in Madagascar program), and Dr J.B. and the Jaguars, who, we were informed, are the favorite in the north these days, playing almost every night. As for tsapika, the whole genre was new to us, as virtually none of this music has yet been released internationally. More on tsapika and salegy coming up. But first, that all-but-forgotten artist.

Tarika Sammy

Sammy Andriamanahirana Nafimahery (you can see why he just goes by Sammy) and his seminal Malagasy roots music group, Tarika Sammy, pretty much dropped out of site internationally after their beautiful 1996 Shanachie release, Beneath Southern Skies. But they're still together, and making great music. The local environment is difficult, as the sort of traditional pop music they play gets little airplay or recording company interest in Madagascar. Internationally, the Malagasy roots music craze crested in the mid-90s. Only Tarika has continued to make extensive international tours in the past five years, and the confusion of names created by the existence of two separate groups--Tarika and Tarika Sammy--hasn't helped Sammy in his quest to find new footings.

Still, when I arrived in Madagascar--a little ahead of the Afropop listener group--Sammy invited me out to his hillside home for a impromptu music demonstration and a refresher course on Malagasy traditional instruments: the valiha, marovany, kabosy and jejy-voatavo. Sammy's wife Claudia served drinks and sandwiches and sang here and there, and Johnny--one of the most accomplished bass players and guitarists in Madagascar--joined in too. So I had three-fifths of Tarika Sammy present, and I gathered some great tape for Afropop Worldwide. I was newly amazed by Sammy's musicality. He seems to play every instrument on the island--including, guitar, violin, and flute--with great expressiveness and spirit. It seemed that wherever we went in Tana, we ran into Sammy: sitting in on violin with Lego at Le Glacier, or with valiha innovator Rajery at a local restaurant, or with Sivy Mahakasy--the extraordinary roots rock band featured on the first Adventure in Madagascar program.

Of all the soulful music we heard from Sammy, we were especially moved by a song about solidarity that he wrote for the jejy voatavo. This instrument's polished gourd resonator suggests an Indian or Asian origin. And it has strings along two separate planes, some for melody and some that simply drone. Sammy says it's an accompaniment instrument from the Betsileo region south of Tana. In any case, it produces an entrancing sound. An informal version of Sammy's new jejy voatavo song is excerpted on our second Madagascar program. A fully realized production of this song doesn't exist yet, but it should. Tarika Sammy clearly needs to get back into the studio and back on the road. Currently unsigned, the group is a great opportunity waiting to happen. Record companies take note!

Salegy and Tsapika

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.

During the 1970s, the island's Disco-Mad label produced hot-selling salegy singles by artists like Jean Fredy, Abdallah, Jaojoby, and one of the style's originators, Tianjama with his then 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.

Tsapika can be thought of as heavily caffeinated Malagasy country music. Since the 1980s, as the island's northern salegy music has earned the respect of the recording industry in Antananarivo, this fast, rowdy dance pop genre has developed in beach-side towns and mining camps in the poor, neglected south of Madagascar. Some say that tsapika is so fast because people in that region talk fast. One northerner explained the genre's speediness as a reflection of the fast footwork young Bara men must master in order to start a family--Bara tradition originally required that a boy steal a zebu, a curved horned cow, in order to marry.

What is sure is that tsapika is electric guitar pop boogie that has origins in the traditional kabosy bands that fire through the night in villages across southern Madagascar, and also in South African pop music, which can be heard on the radio in south-west coastal towns like Tulear. The South African influence is expressed in the music's stomping, 4/4 groove, its use of swelling organ parts--and more recently that woozy keyboard sound popularized by South African reggae man Lucky Dube--and in the genre's favoring of shrill, female vocals, rather like the backing vocals found in Shangaan pop by artists like Obed Ngobeni and the Kurhula Sisters.

Central in every tsapika band is one madly finger-picking electric guitarist. The style is picked with thumb and forefinger only and has a maniacal start-and-stop quality. A tsapika guitarist may hang out in silence for awhile, and then race in with a ferocious, and distinctly Malagasy cluster of notes. Guitarists like Jean-Noel, Bloko, and Said Alexis are local legends, and their groups are in high demand at the sapphire mining camps and other rural work camps where people have money, time on their hands, pent-up energy and nowhere to go.

Tsapika has yet to make it to any international CD, and even in Madagascar, Mars Records is just discovering the genre. They released two cassette compilations in 2001, and have put out a few titles by the band Tirike. For the most part, though, female tsapika singers like Bodida and Mizeha, and groups like Jean-Noel's and Said Alexis's have so far released only low-quality cassettes, mostly on the Or Musique label. This is undoubtedly a trend to watch, however. With a little arranging and production help, tsapika could be the next worldwide Afropop sensation.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre

First published: www.afropop.org