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Charlotte Dipanda

Charlotte Dipanda, born July 18, 1985 in Yaoundé, is a Cameroonian artist-musician, singer and songwriter who also has qualities as a guitarist. She has four albums to her credit. Charlotte Dipanda was born in Yaoundé, the political capital of Cameroon in 1980, into a family of artists where singing and instruments hold no secrets for anyone. She grew up with her grandmother, who raised her and taught her everything1, after her birth mother left for the United States. Charlotte Dipanda spent her childhood and her youth largely between Yaoundé where she was born, Douala where her grandmother lived and Mbouda in West Cameroon, with one of her uncles. She continued her studies successfully and, very fond of music, she began to sing in cabarets at the age of 15. She therefore finds herself obliged to alternate on a daily basis between cabarets where she sang until late at night and sometimes even finished around 2 a.m. and high school where she had to go every morning before 7:30 a.m. Realizing at one point that it was impossible for her to continue with this rhythm, the young pupil then in second class leaves high school to devote herself full time to music2. She began her career as a chorister3. In 2001, she recorded with Jeannot Hens, her first godfather, a Cameroonian guitarist and by extension also a friend of the young rapeurs with whom she had formed a group. Jeannot Hens and Charlotte Dipanda discovered an immediate musical bond and the collaboration between the two artists quickly materialized through the album they recorded together and which was released in 2001. She then moved to Paris. In order to improve, learn more and broaden her horizons, she decided to enroll at the Institut art culture perception (IACP) in Paris5, where she took music theory, piano and singing lessons. As soon as she arrived in Paris, she again contacted [a=Lokua Kanza], who was also installed there, in order to have some benchmarks. The latter will recommend it to Papa Wemba, another great icon of Congolese music, who at the time, was working on his album Bakala Dia Kuba in collaboration with Lokua. It is precisely a duet recorded with [a=Papa Wemba] as part of this album which will mark the very first work of the young singer in Paris. She does the backing vocals for [a=Papa Wemba], [a=Manu Dibango], [a=Idrissa Diop], [a=Rokia Traoré] and [a=Axelle Red] .2,5, and has the honor of making the first scene for Ana Moura, a great Portuguese fado singer. She then joined the Gospel choir for 100 voices2, which allowed her to do what she loved and put it at the service of God, because she was a fervent believer in the Christian religion. But in 2008, she decided to record texts that she had started writing in 2005 and that she had been able to put together in an album, her very first solo album, entitled Mispa and produced by [a=Guy Nsangué] 4,6, known for his multiple collaborations, in particular with the Kassav group. Fulfilling his role as director perfectly, he understood the acoustic universe that the young woman loves and give the whole a nice coherence. Leaning at times towards the makossa while passing by the afrobeat. Mispa is a dedication, a posthumous tribute to his grandmother whose album bears the name. The singer is on a Cameroonian tour, the Mboa Tour, and also performs in France 2. In 2012, Charlotte Dipanda released her second solo album entitled Dube l'Am, in which Toto Guillaume took part in the recording. This album sees the same team intervene, obviously with Guy Nsangué in the production. Without changing anything from his staff, one of whose masterpieces is the French guitarist Julien Pestre, we note on the album cover collaborations with talented instrumentalists such as the Congolese guitarist and singer [a=Olivier Tshimanga], the Congolese singer and guitarist Lokua Kanza, Cameroonian bassist, Richard Bona, the West Indian singer, leader of the Kassav group, [a=Jacob Desvarieux], and finally the participation of [a=Coco Mbassi], another Cameroonian artist. On the same tunes as Mispa, Dube l'Am, which means "my faith", is a set of 14 titles, in Douala, Bakaka and French languages ​​and which translate the convictions of Charlotte Dipanda, her faith in God, in life and in her country, Cameroon, as well as all these things in which she believes, this naivety that she has to always see the best in others. The disc also includes duets with |a=Richard Bona] and Jacob Desvarieux 5,6, encounters that she would never have dared to hope for and of which she nevertheless keeps very fond memories. She returned to Cameroon to present this album and decides to serve her fans at home through her Campus Tour which she will perform in all regions of the country, especially in all student cities. Three years later, the artist returns in 2015 with a third album, Massa, with a mix of jazz, acoustics, makossa-soft and afrobeate. Composed of 10 tracks, this album, which was partly inspired by the Campus Tour experience in 2012, is also by its melodies a tribute to the Cape Verdean icon Cesária Évora, and could even be according to the singer the beginning of a link between Cameroonian music and Cape Verdean music, which she appreciates very much7. For this new project, openness to his native continent and the cultures that came from it is reflected in the choice of his collaborators: the Cape Verdean “Nando” (Fernando Andrade) who has long worked for Cesária Évora, the guitarists Hervé Samb from Senegal and Olivier Tshimanga from Congo or the Brazilian percussionist [a=Ze-Luis Nascimento]. A long-time partner, bassist Guy Nsangué is responsible for translating the artistic desires of Charlotte Dipanda as a director. To mark the difference in its way of proceeding, this album which was released on February 5, 2015, was presented in concert at the Cigale in Paris on March 8 on the occasion of International Women's Day. In Cameroon, the presentation of the album took place in turn through concerts in Douala (Castel Hall) on April 10, and in Yaoundé (Warda Sports Palace) on April 11, 2015. To end the long series of concerts that accompanied her album Massa, she performed a concert on September 10, 2016 at L'Olympia in Paris.