FRANCK BIYONG - EVENING PRAYER Out March 16th 2018 https://franckbiyong1.bandcamp.com/album/evening-prayer “What are your thoughts on corporates investing in the music industry? Well, as far as we can remember, corporate people, corporations, patrons of the arts, sponsorship have always been involved in the artistic life even centuries ago in the eras of the western “renaissance”, romanticism or classicism... Even the great European classical music composers…A large number of them were there in the court of the King writing operas, symphonies or ballets designed to entertain the aristocracy and royalty of that time... Popular music became a large scale industry in the mid sixties last century: That era corresponds to a particular time when the people born during or just after the second world war had come to an adult age and outnumbered the rest of the population in most western countries: That’s when rock and roll and pop music begun having such a huge impact on popular culture and therefore became an industry based on record sales, then ticket sales, then magazines sales, then music videos, then cd sales and so on…. I don’t think that the problem may be corporations entering the music business because they’ve always been there: I think that a change is needed in the way music is marketed, manufactured and sold because the rules have changed ever since 15 or 20 years. These companies used to gather such huge profits without knowing what they were doing (the audiences aspirations pushed the artists and creators forward back then, not the other way around); Unfortunately, with the logic of standardization of mass production, whenever a music genre started bubbling in the underground it was immediately taken over, polished and repeated ad nauseum by record companies all over who produced so many record of copycat bands or talent less artists and therefore diminished the long term artistic credibility of these sub genres So this industry kept reproducing endlessly the same formulas that were once successful without taking into consideration that trends come and go and that teenage audiences turn into mature audiences 20 years later. I think the time has come for “African music” to be really, genuinely influential to the rest of the world. Maybe it’s time creative musicians take their destiny in their own hands and do what the pioneers of the record industry did back then: create a new language, a new market, seek for relevance and a new way of nurturing the music business for themselves…” Franck Biyong @ The Pan African Space Station Chimurenga Library @ La Colonie – Paris, France “Who Killed Kabila?” Exhibition Dec 13th-Dec 17th 2017 www.chimurenga.co.za/archives/6663 credits released March 16, 2018 BAHIEK JUNGLE, BE FUNKY, ATON GOLDEN RA SOME MORE Drums: William Ombé Keyboards: Michel Gagliolo Bass: Patrick Jean Baptiste Tenor Sax & Flute: Séverine Eouzan Trumpet & Flugelhorn: Marc Borlet-Hote Guitar: FB CHARLOTTESVILLE, EBONY PRAYER Drums: Thomas Bellon Bass: Jean-Sebastien Viau Percussion: David Houblon Piano & Keyboards: Leïla Olivesi Baritone Sax: Jon Dacuna Trombone: Toli Almasi Reid Trumpet & Flugelhorn: Marc Borlet-Hote Tenor & Soprano Sax: Gerald Grandman Guitar: FB MOON WATCHING Organ, Arp Solina, Trinity & Prophecy Synthesizers: Florian Pellissier Pads, Keyboards, Moog, Synthesizer, Guitars, Sound Effectcs: FB A PLACE CALLED THE MARKET Drums: Thomas Bellon Piano: Leïla Olivesi Trumpet: Marc Borlet-Hote Bass, Berimbau, Percussion, Keyboards, Synthesizers, Fender Rhodes, Pads, Sound Effects, Guitars: FB DOUBLE RAINBOW Trumpet: Marc Borlet-Hote Percussion: Desire Nkouandou Double Bass: Zacharie Abraham Fender Rhodes: Mathieu Desbordes Percussion, Keyboards, Synthesizers, Pads, Moog, Bass, Guitars: FB All tracks written By Franck Biyong Except BE FUNKY written by Ronald Snijders from his Legendary Album STRAIGHT BLACK MUSIC -Check it out Folks- Recorded at Toko Mc (Amsterdam), Espace Kiron (Paris) ADA Creative Studios (Nairobi), Afrolectric Mobile Studio Recording Engineers: Nicolas Legrand, FB Mixed by Grant Phabao & FB @ Paris Djs Studios Mastered by Benjamin Lafont & FB Produced by Franck Biyong