Abz brings another amazing release titled makossa bringing the genre of makossa featuring Jacky Kingue. linking old school to new school has been what most artists in the industry have been doing.
Jacky Kingue, whose real name is Georges Jacky Eyadi Kingue, born September 27, 1987 in Yaoundé, is a Cameroonian musician. He is the son of the late Robert Kingue and Mouto Ntonè Jacqueline Cécile, and grew up in Douala, within his maternal family. After a somewhat chaotic schooling, for lack of sufficient financial means, he stopped his studies in fifth grade, he was then fourteen years old. From this difficult period, he kept the fond memory of his late paternal uncle, Ngando Nicolas, the one thanks to whom he and his big sister will be educated, until obtaining the certificate of primary studies. With the end of his studies, Georges Jacky Eyadi Kingue does odd jobs, while his mother struggles to support the family. A teenage life made up of deprivation and resourcefulness. During these years, Jacky forges the soul of a warrior, armed with his passion for music. And to do like the grown-ups, despite family reluctance, he tinkers with his own instruments which he learns as an autodidact. Passionate about drums, like his friend, Francis Ngombe Matanda, he makes them the traditional way with old milk cans and rubber from used inner tubes. Both dreamed of becoming professional drummers.
Finally, in 1999, Jacky gave up the drums to devote himself to singing. In the process, he took his first steps as a singer in one of the cabarets in his neighborhood, in Douala. Despite the absence of a stamp, he plays there every evening after his day’s work, under the protection of one of the group’s managers, the artist Dany Mouandjo. Only tips then serve as wages. But his real apprenticeship took place a few months later, during a tour of this orchestra in the south-west of the country. In particular, he learns to use his voice as an instrument.
Back in Douala after twelve weeks of touring, Jacky decides to leave the group to become an itinerant singer. In 2001, at the request of singer Kaïssa Pakito, he joined the cabaret La belle époque. He stayed there for a few months, before joining the Brasseries du Cameroun orchestra. But alongside his musical activities, he decides to open a hairdressing salon in order to secure a fixed income. This food profession, he had learned it a few years earlier alongside one of his friends.
One evening, during this same year of 2001, his singing talents were noticed by Prince Ndédi Eyango, one of the stars of Cameroonian music. The latter decides to produce his first solo album entitled “Patou”. Success is there and Jacky Kingue becomes known to the general public. He then accumulated distinctions, including that of male revelation of the year 2002. Driven by this success, he left Cameroon that year to settle in France. Two years later, he recorded his second album and separated from his producer by mutual agreement. At the time, he wanted to broaden his horizons and fly on his own. But above all, he wants to go back to school. He learned about computers, in order to be able to make computer-assisted music. Anxious to improve his musical knowledge, he also attends the conservatory. By dint of work, he becomes not only a songwriter, but also an arranger.
Over the years, he created a small production label, wrote songs and made albums for other artists. In 2011, he released a single entitled ”En charge”, which unfortunately did not meet with the expected success. Six years later, his album “Open” receives a nice success of esteem. In 2019, he resumed ”Chérie coco”, a song written a few years earlier, and which he decided to simplify as much as possible. As soon as the teaser for this title is published, social networks are on fire. As soon as the single was released in March 2020, the success was undeniable, quite the contrary. A success that can be explained in part by the fact that Jacky Kingue reconnects here with the basics of makossa, that is to say the traditional sawa rhythms such as assiko, bolobo and essewe. Written in Douala and French, the text of this love song serves a story told in the form of a lament. Here we find one of the essential ingredients of the most popular traditional songs.
To support the promotion of the single, Jacky Kingue and his teams quickly launched the Chérie coco challenge. An idea suggested to him by his friend Yves Soppo. Then the challenge turned into a competition for amateur artists and fans, won by the young Cameroonian singer Louise Ebenye. Social networks are teeming with videos of performers of Chérie coco. A song that undoubtedly marks a turning point in the career of its author.
Since then, Jacky Kingue has been performing concert dates as much as possible in France and especially in Cameroon, despite the coronavirus epidemic. From now on, Jacky Kingue calls himself ”The voice”, and his ambition is clear: to become one of the greatest Cameroonian makossa singers in the world.