Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Its coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea, and the Atlantic Ocean. Due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West Africa and Central Africa, it has been categorized as being in both camps. Cameroon's population of nearly 31 million people speak 250 native languages, in addition to the national tongues of English and French, or both. Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões (Shrimp River), which became Cameroon in English.
Links to Peel[]
Ane Ya - Mensy
Peel played some Cameroonian music on his shows between the late 80's and early 90's and mentioned the desire to visit the country on his 16 September 1987 show before playing Mensy's 'Ane Ya' track:
This next comes from Cameroon, that's another of the places I want to go to very much. I still desperate to get back to Japan on any enormous pretext in case any of you wants to fly somebody over there for any reason, I'm your man. I'm your great pudding.
In 1990, the Cameroon football team surprisingly did well in the World Cup, reaching the quarter finals of that year and music from that country gained extra exposure in the media due to that, where Peel even gave airplay as well as a session to Cameroonian band, Les Têtes Brulées.
Pepe Kalle - Roger Milla (audio)
In 1991, Congolese singer, Pépé Kallé, released a song called 'Roger Milla', who was the Cameroon football player that played in the 1990 World Cup football tournament. The song was a favourite of Peel who in an interview with the Telegraph before his death, mentioned that Pepe Kalle's Roger Milla would be one of the songs he would like to be played on his funeral:
There's one record, called Roger Milla, which is by Pepe Kalle - he's from the country that once was called Zaire but is now called one of those Monty Python-esque names such as the People's Republic of Congo, or Congolese People's Republic, or something - that I would buy straight away. Roger Milla was a Cameroon footballer - a great World Cup hero about 20 years ago. It is the other song I want played at my funeral, along with Teenage Kicks by the Undertones because it's such an uplifting, glorious record. I would need to have something like that at my funeral. [1]
At Peel's funeral, the Roger Milla song wasn't played, but nonetheless Cameroonian music did give some exposure to Peel's listeners.
Sessions[]
The following artists from Cameroon recorded sessions for the John Peel Show:
- Les Têtes Brulées: (1 session, 1990)
Compilations[]
(Tracks played by Peel from various artist (v/a) compilations featuring music from Cameroon. Please add more information if known.)
- None
See Also[]
- Macka B (he released a song called 'Pam Pam Cameroon' which Peel played in 1990)