If you’re in Paris and feel like seeing some music you can catch me at these shows in the near future:

• Tonight: Les Espoirs de Coronthie at the Satellit Café
• June 13th: Rajery at the Satellit Café
• June 20th: Andy Palacio at the New Morning

Find me and I’ll buy you a beer on Benn loxo. I look a bit like this, or just listen for a guy speaking French with a confused Parisian/Dakarois/Quebecois/Anglo accent.

Anyway, it’s Friday. Relax. Let’s hear some good music.

I was reading this article in the BBC the other day and ended up on an Internet quest to learn everything there is to know about Bob Denard. What a fascinating (and frightening) guy. He’s best known for landing 30 men on the shores of Grande Comore and kidnapping the Comorian president, however that was just one of his four coup attempts on the islands. You have to admit that’s pretty gutsy.

Following his last coup attempt the French intervened and all was well again. Needless to say, les français didn’t want trouble so close to one of their neo-colonial outposts, Mayotte.

Abou Chihabi had a booming career in the Comoros until that same Bob and some other mercenaries shook-up the islands in 1978, assassinating the president and reaffirming French economic dominance.

Chihabi fled to Kenya and then France where he slowly developed a successful music career. His 1997 album, Folkomor Ocean, is great.

Abou Chihabi – Upwa Nvubwe Uhoza