CD Review: Kareyce Fotso's 'Kwegne'

Kareyce Fotso
Kwegne
Contre-Jour

Cameroonian, Kareyce Fotso, is a talented singer and guitarist to emerge out of west-central Africa. "So'A" is a guitar and vocal song that begins the album. The song possesses a heartfelt, yearning quality throughout. "Peu Be" adds a little more instrumentation with the berimbau, calabash, and sikko creating a more robust sound quality, while still remaining traditional. The lack of rock guitar additions or electronic musical mixtures is not necessary to create outstanding, African music. In this case, Kareyce creates emotive songs using nothing more than simple percussion and a guitar. Kareyce's voice is a thing of beauty. In a similar manner, Kareyce's voice is not too far off from Mali's Rokia Traore. Overall, Kwegne is a great, contemporary Cameroonian release of auditory happiness. In addition, liner notes contain information and/or lyrics for most of the eleven songs. ~ Matthew Forss