Jean Bikoko Aladin, The Assiko King!

One of my favorite posts from the old blog was this long piece on the music of Jean Bikoko Aladin, the king of Assiko music, and a legend of Camerounian music.  This feature took a month of work and it includes everything I know about Jean Bikoko Aladin.  What it doesn't include, however, are all of the Jean Bikoko tracks that I have.  There are six tracks, three recorded in the Radio Douala studios and three released on the Africambiance label (on 45), that I didn't post.





I can no longer remember why I didn't post these tracks.  They are, with one exception, just as good as the ones that I featured: the exceptional track, one of the Radio Douala recordings, has a brief technical flaw, a minor annoyance that doesn't make the track any less fantastic.

1970s commercial and radio recordings

Enjoy some wicked Jean Bikoko Aladin from the formative years of his long career.  His right-hand thumb and index finger cross-rhythms still astound me. 

 (Apologies for the low bitrate.  These are the only files I can find at the moment. The music is too good not to share.)


Comments

  1. Amazing share, thank you so much! As far as I know, he only has a few 45' singles to his name - been looking for them for quite some time :)

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