When after 20 minutes of technologically frustrated near-successes, we finally got Lapiro de Mbanga on his mobile phone last night, it was roughly 3 a.m. Cameroon time, and an audience member wanted to know if he would sing a few bars from his prison cell. He politely passed over the request. In a private phone conversation earlier in the day, he had told me that he was concerned about disturbing his cellmates.
He did stay on the line as Lamine Touré and Group Saloum took the stage at Littlefield and performed a spirited interpretation of "Constitution Constipée," Lapiro's banned hit. It was Impossible Music Session 3, which began with a discussion forum featuring Maran Turner, of Freedom Now, and Banning Eyre, of Afropop.org. Reacting to the performance, which featured vocals in English and Wolof by the Senegalese-born Touré, Lapiro's voice came over the speakers:
Thank you very much. Fantastic! Marvelous! I am very emotional. I liked that version. God bless Africa. God bless Senegal. God bless Cameroon. Thanks to all the people who are making any attempt to make sure that music can be a way of free expression. Constitution Constipée--I wrote this song because in Africa we have leaders who stay in power all their life. And mostly in Cameroon, our leaders want to be in power for all their life span. So I decided to make this song to share the power and that's why I am in jail today.
Before saying goodnight, I tried one last time to persuade Lapiro to sing. He said that instead in one year he would join his Senegalese brother on stage to sing with him as a free man. Cameras from Al Jazeera, Reuters TV, Swedish Radio, and other media captured the moment.
After grooving to a closing set of Group Saloum's original mbalax-inflected tunes, audience members wrote their personal messages of support for Lapiro on Impossible Music postcards stamped and addressed to his wife Louisette, and then stepped out into a stirring Brooklyn night.
For a picture gallery, see Impossible Music.
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