This December 11, at the Marbrerie de Montreuil, the Guyane d’ici et d’ailleurs evening, with Aminata Saint-Orice in the first part, revealed the Cippe brothers to the Parisian public. These virtuosos who make the drums vibrate and shake up traditions play five concerts for Africolor in three different formats, until December 14. Enough to discover their paths of rhythms, between pride and resistance.
This December evening, the Parisian cold is particularly fierce. So, before playing at the Marbrerie, in Montreuil, as part of the Africolor festival, the Cippe brothers rub vigorously, certainly more than usual, the skins of their drums to warm them up.
Perhaps it is also a ritual to give heart to the work, because this is the first time that they play in Paris, one of the rare times that they perform outside of Guyana, their territory, and they admit it: a mixture of excitement, pride and emotions runs through them.
Soon, however, a fireworks display of admirably mastered percussion, an interweaving of the seven rhythms of Guyanese drums and vocal polyphonies, their signature, invades, like the ramifications of a teeming tropical forest, the concrete architecture of the Marblework, quickly heated to the limit.
Because if the Parisian public does not (yet) know this family of virtuosos, the tribe – four Cippe brothers, Armelle Cippe, Steeve’s wife, and three “adopted” – is not really made up of partridges from the year. For everyone, the drum is the story of a life: the roots, carefully cultivated. “ I live drum, I eat drum, I breathe drum », confesses Steeve, one of the charismatic leaders.
Despised music
At the origins of the history of these king drums, there is the patriarch, the “dòkò”, the master of Creole drums Reno Cippe, who passed on his art to his ten children, seven boys and three girls. Tirelessly, this recognized teacher teaches the secrets of these rhythms inherited from the crossbreeding of Guyana – Native American, African, European – played daily during baptisms, weddings, birthdays, or these cathartic celebrations, from dusk to dawn, THE konvwésthe equivalent of léwoz Guadeloupeans.
“ At the slightest event, there is a bang of drums », confirms Marie-Sylvie Benoît, one of the adoptees. And these beats, these palms slapped on the skins, accompany question/answer songs – social chronicles, saucy anecdotes, neighborhood stories, modest daily philosophies… Today taught at the conservatory for 20 years, the art of tambouyans has long been despised and the subject of mockery. “ It was considered backward music, the soundtrack of country people… », laments Steve.
From a very young age, however, he and his brothers worked to keep it alive, and they hired out their services for events, or to accompany this singer, that singer… Until Armelle suggested, eight years ago years, to set up a “real” group, endowed with its own identity and direction.
However, to forge your particularity, to distinguish yourself from others tambouyanswe must reconsider tradition, dust it off… Betrayal? “ Absolutely not! Our grandfather already played the accordion at the same time as his drum, and played bass on his floor with his broomstick.they smile. In reality, we distinguish between ‘folklore’ which anachronistically freezes the music of our ancestors, and ‘tradition’, which preserves its living roots, and is creolized with other sources of inspiration, elements of current affairs, the tastes of our generation… We, for example, have chosen to keep the percussion-voice combination, but we create vocal polyphonies, our characteristic… »
Their escapades off the beaten track can, however, be guessed beyond these vocal experiments. They nestle in particular in their adventurous collaborations: with their compatriot Christiane Taubira, with the Norwegian progressive rock group Pymlico, or even with the jazz saxophonist, honed with Caribbean accents Samy Thiébault and the ambassador of gwo ka and leader of Akiyo, Fanswa Ladrezau (a creation to be found on December 13 in Stains, for Africolor).
From skin to electro
But that evening, at the Marbrerie, it was with a cousin Cippe, exiled in mainland France, the DJ Wakanda ETNi (“Wakanda” means “warrior” in the Sioux language) that they forged new landscapes. In the “afromazonia house” of the young woman on the turntables, in her composite loops, a luxuriant mix of soul, jazz, amapiano, South American beautiful escapes and Guyanese bases, they slide their rhythms, their kasékòtheir kanmougwetheir labasyou, their grajé…
And compose music from the past, the future, rooted and universal, where the palms and the heat of the drums intertwine with digital beats: “from the skin to electro”.
After this set and the performance of their latest record, they play, in the end, a medley of kasékò (“the broken body”) hits, taken up in chorus by the public, like the anthem of an entire people, Gwiyann, mo péyi. Here, that evening, the entire diaspora, members of the Dokonon association, and the International Federation of Guyanese Associations (FIAG), partner of the event, had a great time, as during the first part provided by the diva Aminata Saint-Orice, with her beguines and mazurkas, ambassador in Paris of the Guyanese carnival and its famous Touloulous, who came to perform her multi-award winning hits, Akroc di mo zo (“addicted to my darling”) or The most beautiful.
But make no mistake. Behind the party and the conviviality, there is indeed this message and this tenacious resistance, as the title of the Cippe brothers’ record reminds us, Nou tambou a nou zarm“Our drums are our weapons”. “ In 2017, the drums accompanied the social movements in Guyana: the expression and manifestation of our cultures, our traditions in the face of metropolitan power. At the moment, Martinique is revolting against the high cost of living. If the movement reaches Guyana, our percussions will be at the forefront… “, they assure. The drum as a means of pride and emancipation, as roots and strength for the future? No doubt, the Cippe brothers are coming!
The Cippe Brothers, in concert on December 12 at the Villetaneuse campus of the Sorbonne Paris Nord University, with Samy Thiébault on December 13 at the Paul-Éluard space in Stains and on December 14 at the Jean Vilar theater (Paris).