In Gabon, young slammers, led by the reigning Gabonese slam champion, Clyde Nzenguet Mabondo, are offering a café concert this Friday evening at the French Institute of Gabon. Titled ” Blessings of the Earth », this musical encounter, imbued with traditions and inspirations from the Gabonese forest, promises a captivating experience to transport the audience beyond words.
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With our correspondent in Libreville, Yves-Laurent Goma
They are making the final adjustments. Clyde Nzenguet Mabondo and his friends have been working hard for a month for the success of their café-concert. Aged 30, Clyde, with 15 years of experience, is one of the heavyweights of slam Gabon.
“ In Port-Gentil, I was elected Slam Revelation 2015. Then, I did the Slam Standing Ovation festival and I won the Golden Poet prize. After that, I participated in the Gabon Slam Cup and was crowned Gabon Slam Champion in 2023 “, he summarizes.
This Friday’s café-concert is an immersion into the heart of the traditions of the people of southern Gabon. A major plea in favor of local languages, today threatened with extinction.
Asked about certain sentences he recites, Clyde Nzenguet Mabondo translates: “ It’s about pain. A mother who lost a son, who died in combat, because he demanded rights. » The audience expected this Friday will be transported into a show between French and local Gabonese languages.
Gabon, “the NBA of slam” carrying young talents
Master No, three-time slam champion in Gabon, director of the Black History Art festival and ambassador of Gabonese slam abroad welcomes the rise of young slammers in Gabon.
“ Proud, that would be a small word because when we look at the work we carried out in the workshops, we tried to show the way and give a trajectory to Gabonese slam. And when we see this new generation who has a professional vision, we are quite satisfied. For those who have always defined Gabon as the NBA of slam in terms of talent and originality, we are rather happy “, he congratulates himself.
When slam arrived in Gabon in 2004, there was a lot of excitement, and afterwards, the connotation that slam was given as being an art of protest. With the old regime in place, there was a problem of freedom of expression which reduced our field of activity. Then recently, slam is taking off, there is a new face of slam and of the entire Gabonese culture.
Master No, three-time slam champion in Gabon and ambassador of Gabonese slam abroad
Also readGabon – Slam Master No: “The Gabonese speaks of “liberation”” rather than a coup d’état