Coco Mbassi: the multifaceted life of a London Artist

London celebrated African music in September with the 12th Joyful Noise event London African Music Festival. Spread across different venues, the event hosted numerous African artists from every corner of the world. To close the event, the French Cameroonian Coco Mbassi played in front of an intimate audience at the Vortex Jazz Bar on Sunday 28th September, expressing at its utmost what the African festival is about: a mixture of elements that meet in a special alchemy and a party where everyone is important and valuable.

Far from emergent, Coco has been in the scene of the jazz and world music for many years. Just like the nature of her music, her life is a blend of intentions that meet in one persona. Award winning musician, devoted mother and wife, full time language expert and soon to be sociolinguistics professor, she knows a thing or two about multitasking. When I first met her in 2011, I was enveloped by her kind smile and carried away by her explosive personality. Before the gig, she shows me her perspective as a London based artist.

The title of her new album, Jóa, means “maturity” in Duala, as she explains, “I guess I am at that stage of my life that my uncle calls ‘O teten’a bato’, a play on words that means ‘In between people’. I ripen with age, I believe the album reflects that and I hope the audience will feel the same way.” Duala is the main language Coco sings in, a dialect cluster spoken by the Duala and Mungo people of Cameroon, “It's my mother's language. But on my previous album I sang a song in my father's dialect too, called Pongo and I also sometimes sing in English”.

Coco's unique sound is a blend of jazz, gospel and acoustic soul music, whilst keeping the ancestral magic that celebrates her origins. I ask her what role London plays as a home for inspirations, “I have found that in the music business in London there is very little crossover compared to Paris, for example”. She was born in Paris and lived there for most of her life; that's where her first albums were released and her solo career started; offering exciting collaborations with other artists and her involvement with Cirque du Soleil. “The French music scene is open to mixtures of musical genres, while here the music business tends to cling to a sentimental view of African music, expecting someone like me who has only lived on the African continent for 13 years, to wear traditional attires and to use traditional instruments, or to play 60s-70s post-colonial African bar music”. She continues, “Rather than being pigeonholed into an imagined romanticised African identity, we are entitled to a third space. The term was coined by an Indian professor called Homi Bhabha and it is salutary for me. It is also a categorisation of course, but one that I am comfortable with”.

Another way to express her Africanity and Europeaness for Coco is through her passion for languages. While she composes her music and produces it in collaboration with her husband Serge Ngando, she works as a language specialist and she's about to complete her PHD “Yes indeed! I am researching sociolinguistics at Kings College London, with a focus on Camfranglais, an urban sociolect from Cameroon”. But is it possible not to lose control of anything when so much is on her plate? “I confess I like being very busy, even though I know that it is unhealthy and not sustainable on a long term basis. Of course, sometimes things get out of control – there is always an area that will suffer. Isn’t life about choices? I think the best answer is: I am woman, a born multitasker”.

Will Coco Mbassi go back touring? “I certainly hope so. Playing these songs to an audience is the best thing ever. The music breathes, and people tap into their emotions very strongly so any perceived differences fade out and we become strongly bonded by music. I believe this is true of all good art. I dare to think that my music is considered good art at least by my fans”.