Coupé-Décalé!!!

I figured that this week I'd do a post on a more contemporary genre of music. Hopefully, some of you have heard of Coupé-Décalé, a type of popular dance music that is associated with Côte D'Ivoire, but that was actually invented in Paris. While I will admit that Coupé-Décalé can get a little repetitive, and some of the production is a bit tacky, it would be foolish of me not to include something about it on this blog.

Coupé-Décalé, which emerged around 2002, has exploded in popularity over the past few years and can be found all over Francophone Africa as well as in France. The term Coupé-Décalé means something along the lines of "cheat and run away" or "cut and run" in Ivoirian slang. It can be very over the top and the culture associated with it seems to me to be very materialistic. For example, you often see videos of musicians flashing designer everything (right down to Versace underwear) and driving expensive cars. Many of the original Coupé-Décalé musicians returned to Abidjan and became known for doing things like handing out cash to people in the clubs where they performed. There was a certain emphasis on the idea that these musicians were cheating Europeans out of their cash by accumulating wealth in Europe and bringing it back to Côte D'Ivoire.

Here is the music video for the song "Sagacité" by Douk Saga, one of the creators of Coupé-Décalé. I think it gives you a good sense of the kind of materialism I was talking about.


Also, here is an example of the kind of dancing associated with Coupé-Décalé:



Finally, here are two songs that I have grown to love:

Kedjevara - Tchoucou Tchoucou

Dj Mix 1er & Eloh DJ - Bobaraba


***Edit: I recently got the opportunity to watch Sembene's "La Noire de..." and Mambety's "Touki-Bouki" over again and as I was doing so, I realized something. I have been very critical of Coupé-Décalé for its inherent materialism, but perhaps I have been a bit unfair and, in a way, hypocritical. As I mentioned above, there is this reoccurring theme within the world of Coupé-Décalé of making it big in Europe and then going back to Côte d'Ivoire and parading new-found wealth around. In the past, I have been tremendously dismissive of this, writing it off as a kind of tasteless show-boating. Yet, in watching these two films over again I realized this same exact theme exists in so much of the West African cinema that I deeply respect and cherish. In this context, I have never thought of the desire to escape to Europe, get rich and then return home to show off and spread that wealth as tasteless. Instead, I have considered that very theme to be an integral part of what makes these films such brilliant social commentaries. So maybe I should be more careful in my analysis and opinions of this aspect of the culture of Coupé-Décalé. On the other hand, the fact that this theme is used by directors such as Ousmane Sembene and Djibril Diop Mambety to drive a point home makes a huge difference.