The Bourse de Commerce is hosting two exceptional concerts by Oko Ebombo, a Parisian singer of Congolese origins, to celebrate the release of Free Emotion, his first album, in October 2023.
Oko Ebombo is a musician, poet, dancer, and video artist. As a child, he would always dance to hip-hop and jazz. He used to love to MC parties at his school. He also took theatre classes, ultimately making the street his playground and his classroom. He grew up in Paris’ 10th arrondissement, a very diverse neighbourhood that continues to nurture his art to this very day. At the age of 12, with his dance class, he discovered the United States. He returned there in 2007 to follow a group of architects, crossing the country from Portland to New York, experimenting with photography and spoken word at the same time. In the New York underground scene, he met jazz musicians such as the trumpeter Antoine Drye and the saxophonist Myron Walden, and he also played with Mustafa Ahmed, former percussionist for the American composer Arthur Russell (1951-1992), an unsung genius during his own lifetime. All these figures helped him grow as a musician, and he wrote his first songs during this trip. One day, as he sang acapella and danced in the street, a man approached him and exclaimed, “What a shadow! ” It was David Bowie (1947-2016). This fortuitous encounter inspired him to write Black Bowie, a cosmic track that reveals the influence of Ziggy Stardust’s creator. In 2016, he released the elegant and acclaimed EP Naked Life. Oko Ebombo describes his music – which bears traces of afro-jazz, spirituals, hip-hop, and Congolese rumba – as a “street jazz” forged by movement, writing, and poetry, “a classy, elegant way of expressing myself with the few means at my disposal”. After returning to France, at a party at Les Bains Douches in Paris, he met the French DJ and producer Philippe Zdar (1967-2019), a pioneer of the French Touch and a member of the electronica duo Cassius. Zdar took him to Motorbass, the legendary recording studio at 84 rue des Martyrs that he had restored to its former glory. In 2018, Ebombo began recording the sublime Free Emotion there, which he released in October 2023. The album is a journey through the chapters of his life. The result of a collective energy generated by the musicians he met during his travels, the compositions reveal the marvellous touch of Philippe Zdar. “Free Emotion reflects the emotions and first experiences of my life: my first steps, my colours, my loves in the broadest sense, my pain, my poetry, and my life as a troubadour. It’s my very own rumba, with long beats on which to put all your pain”, Oko Ebombo says.
Oko Ebombo is accompanied on stage by Antoine Drye (trumpet), Myron Walden (saxophone), Mustafa Ahmed (percussion), Bonnie Banane (vocals), Florian Gouello (drums), Monomite (bass and keyboards), Jespfur (guitar), and Jean Sylvain (keyboards).
