Reuniting with my dear friend Fio Kone in Paris, France on May 19th was one of the highlights of my spring, 1999 trip to Europe. Fio is originally from Burkina Faso, Africa. We first met 7 year ago in July of 1992 at Stephen's Talk House in Amagansett, New York where he performed with Zairian bandleader Kanda Bongo Man, who is an exponent of the African music known as soukous.

Soukous is the pop music of Zaire and is loved by all of Africa. Fio calls this music the "rock-and-roll of Africa." He described, in detail, the strong musical connection between soukous and Cuban music. "In fact," Fio said, "in the 1960s, the people of Zaire called their music 'the rumba.'"& They also referred to their music with other names from Cuban music such as charanga and pachanga. Fio points out that if you listen carefully to those songs, first you hear the clavé, then you hear the conga. What you don't hear, because the recordings were very bad, are the maracas but they were also in the music.& The piano was replaced with the guitar, since they didn't have a piano, and the percussion they played was mainly the conga. However, they did not play the conga in the same style as the Cubans. Basically they used the conga in the way most styles used the drum kit. The music was very rhythmic but not very syncopated.

The structure for the song at that time was very close to the structure of Latin music. The lead singer sang the first part of the song. In the second part of song, the chorus would respond to the lead singer. Finally, the saxophone player and guitar players would take solos in the third part of the song. So it was basically the same structure as Latin music.

It was in the 1970s, when the Africans began to use the drumkit, that the beat slightly changed and the music they call soukous was born. The word soukous comes from a French word, which means to shake. Of course, it is the fastest part of the song. It is the part where you are supposed to shake. In Cuban music it could be compared to the montuno section.

Eventually, however, soukous took on a form of its own and became less identifiable with the Cuban music due to the influence of African musicians moving to Europe. The African musicians who moved to Europe began playing music that was faster for dance clubs. The musicians dropped the most melodic part of the music and kept only the dance floor beat.

For many music lovers, the current soukous is very poor compared to what they were doing in the 1960s because the singers don't sing melodically. In the 1980s, they didn't have real songs, they only had a chorus repeating the same phrases but not very melodically. This was not welcome by everybody. Many people miss the old time vocalists who sang melodically.

Matthew Cohen and Fio Kone in the Hotel Meridien, Paris, France. May 20, 1999.

Fio has a long relationship with soukous star Kanda Bongo Man and admires him for his ability to please and to be close to the audience. Fio said that Kanda makes people feel as though he is singing for them, that the band is there only for them, even if there are 5,000 people in the room. Fio believes that is his real strength. He recalled a time when Michael Jackson went to Tanzania and was not available for the crowd. By contrast when Kanda Bongo Man got there a short time later, he showed the people that he was one of them. He went to the market where he bargained hard for his purchases. He spoke some Swahili, which the people really appreciated. They came to call Kanda a real star -- a real African musical star.

One of the most frightening experiences in Fio's musical life came when he was riding in the same bus as Kanda Bongo Man while touring in Africa.  When they saw that Kanda was in the bus, the crowd began shaking the bus.  When the musicians ride alone nobody notices and they are safe.  The people only go after the star.

Stars  come in many forms.  Fio  Kone is a star to me because of his humility, intellect, hunger for knowledge, and the special kindness that he shows to my wife Vivianne, my son Matthew and myself.

Listen to Fio discuss his career with me in an interview I did while visiting him in Paris, France.