The most recent visit to the land of semba and kizomba was the first in which the historic trio that “invented” zouk, Jocelyne Béroard, Jean-Claude Naimro, and Georges Décimus, performed in Angola without Jacob Desvarieux, who died five years ago.
After covering the two concerts held at the Sons Tropicais Festival in Luanda and at Festisumbe, as well as the cultural exchange promoted at the Prova d’art Miramar venue, Jornaldeangola interviewed some of the figures who were involved in the group’s first visit to the country.
On that occasion, Adão Filipe, from AF Entretenimento, responsible for bringing Kassav to the country this year, invited Manuel Sebastião and Dionísio Rocha, former employees of the State Secretariat for Culture, who played a similar role in 1985 when the institution was headed by Boaventura Cardoso.
Manuel Sebastião: “The youth were very euphoric and even invaded the hotel”
Manuel Sebastião, then head of the Exchange Department, spoke to the Jornal de Angola about the details of the so-called “Operation Paris,” a mission entrusted to him by Boaventura Cardoso and André Mingas, then director of Cultural Action.
“I was one of the Culture officials sent to Paris to oversee the entire process of bringing Kassav to the country, as instructed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Boaventura Cardoso. There was a need to bring the group to the country. At the time, Kassav’s music was very popular among young people, and it was important for the group to perform live so that we could all directly feel the impact of the music from the Antilles,” recalled the former provincial director of Culture in Luanda.
Speaking about the efforts made in Paris, Manuel Sebastião revealed that he had the support of the Angolan Embassy in France to establish agreements for the performances in the country.
“During the talks, we were interacting with Luanda and we couldn’t make any commitments without higher approval. There were issues related to equipment, travel, and payment methods that depended on higher decisions,” he said.
Regarding the group’s visit in September 1985, he recalls that “at the time the youth were very euphoric. They even went so far as to invade the Hotel Trópico, especially the girls, who wanted to get close to Jean-Philippe Marthély and Patrick Saint-Éloi. They were very excited, and I even had to move them away from the elevator door so as not to disturb our guests.”
Manuel Sebastião acknowledged that the Kassav’s first visit represented an important learning experience for future negotiations and contributed to raising the quality of the organization of international events in Angola.
“Then we went to Zaire to find artists like Mbilia Bel, Pongo Love and Pépé Kallé. Before that, we had already brought Franco, Miriam Makeba, Manu Dibango, Rochereau and many other foreign artists, as well as Teta Lando, Sam Mangwana and several Angolan musicians who lived abroad,” he recalled.
