A young man very much part of his era, with a sense of fun, Idy Oulo handles African pop with real skill, conveying in his music the entire history and cultural wealth of the savannah.
Idy Oulo was born around 1977 in northern Cameroon. His stage name comes from his real name, Idrissou, while. Oulo means arrow in Fufulde, one of Cameroon’s languages. Nothing in his background predestined him to become a musician. It was by listening to the traditional rhythms played by griots and shepherds in his village that Idy Oulo found his calling.
His father, an employee of the region’s cotton company, did not see things this way, But his mother gave him the opportunity to keep up his dreams, bringing him to weddings and baptisms. One day, at his grandmother’s house in a very remote village. He touched an instrument, the garaya (a sort of two-string ngoni). Back at his parents’ house, he made his first guitar with pieces of wood and recycled brake cable.
The young Idy Oulo learned music through conviction and tenacity. He won his first award in 1988 with a group consisting of several schoolmates. In the following years, he continued to perform with his group at branches of the Franco-Cameroonian Alliance. In the 1990s, he continued his career with the Douala-based group Kawtal. He took part in the original sound track of the French film Le Maître des Eléphants by Patrick Grandperret with Jacques Dutronc. He also played at the opening ceremony of football’s World Cup in 1998 in France and performed at the MASA in Côte d'Ivoire.
In 2000, it was a change of scene. He settled in the French city of Angoulême to pursue a solo career. Two years later, he won an award in the Poitou-Charentes regional Music and Dance competition. In 2003, he won the “Label Mosaïc” competition held by Crédit Agricole and Universal Music in Charente-Périgord. The same year, he was a finalist in Découvertes du Printemps in the city of Bourges.
His first solo album, Ténèbres, came out in 2005. In it, he showed his determination, as a Cameroonian exiled in France, to share his music. An initial single, Né gros et beau, says plenty about his humour and derision. Since then, he has tirelessly made his reggae-accented Ngoumba-Balewa beats ring out on European stages.
Learn more about Idy Oulo at
http://www.idyoulo.com/
http://www.myspace.com/idyoulomana
http://www.facebook.com/pages/myworldmusicfriendscom/103002526104?ref=mf...
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