African Adventure Motorcycle Travel

Awesome Tapes From Africa

Many African singers and bands over the past few decades have recorded onto tapes - much more portable than vinyl - and many still record to tape, or at least copy to tape.

Now a Brooklyn-based blogger has taken the trouble to record many of these obscure tapes then digitally upload them - together with the cover information - onto Awesome Tapes From Africa. 

This is an excellent resource to discover all those short run cassettes from most countries in Africa, which will hopefully keep them safe forever.

Here is the tape cover from Abou Salam et les tendistes from Niger, chosen because that country had a military coup yesterday morning. I hope not too many people get caught in the inevitable crossfire.

The Forgotten People

I am directed to a small office in a breezeblock building and enter a darkened room with the curtains drawn. The chef de frontière du police force has never before seen a carnet, so I point out the places where I need his precious stamp to enter his country, but he is more concerned that I should want to.

‘You go where? There is nothing here.’

His secretary knocks and enters the room carrying a small tray on which are balanced a tiny teapot and two shot glasses.

‘I am sure you will have some tea, yes?’

We both take a large swig of the simultaneously sweet and bitter broth and acknowledge the moment with our eyes over the tops of the glasses. He leads me out onto the verandah of the building.

‘We are a race apart up here,’ he tells me, ‘we are the forgotten people. The people of Mfum across the river and here in Ekok belong to the same tribe, the same families, although they are told they live in two different countries. To them it is not a border, it is just a river. Most Cameroon people speak French but we speak English, but not your English I think. Yes,’ he repeats, surveying the ragged border settlement before us, ‘we are the forgotten people.’

That's an extract from my book AFRICAN BREW HA-HA which illustrates the sense of separation many people feel in northwestern Cameroon - on the Nigeria border - from the French-speaking majority in the rest of the country (a constant refrain I heard was 'We are the forgotten people').

Many now believe they should have voted to become part of Nigeria when they had the chance in the 1960s when the old colonies were becoming nation states in their own right.

UP STATION MOUNTAIN CLUB Man no run ...

Here is a website - written by English-speakers - that highlights the relationship between the state and anglophone Cameroon. It can be very funny, acerbic - and illegal. Another great example of how the Internet is going to influence life in these otherwise hard-to-reach neighbourhoods.

One thing is for certain - if locals judge their importance to the government by the state of their roads, they have been comprehensively overlooked.

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