BRINGING THE WORLD HOME
Festival benefits from its siblings, and vice versa
Tiken Jah Fakoly was an aspiring reggae star when he arrived from Ivory Coast to headline an outdoor concert at the Festival International Nuits d’Afrique in 2000. In a well-told story, he was bedridden in a Montreal hotel room recuperating from malaria for three days before he “willed” himself onstage at Place Émilie-Gamelin.
“That concert is the one that has most marked my career,” Fakoly told the Montreal Gazette in 2012. And so a legend was born. Last month, Fakoly was back in Montreal for a free outdoor show in front of thousands at Les FrancoFolies — a festival that, along with the Montreal International Jazz Festival, has benefited greatly from Nuits d’Afrique’s programming choices over the years.
Without the larger budgets of Les FrancoFolies or the jazz fest, Nuits d’Afrique has managed to carve out a niche and thrive at a busy time of year on the cultural calendar, especially when much of its programming could have been swallowed up by its bigger siblings.
“What is important is we haven’t changed our mandate, we haven’t changed what made us successful,” said Nuits d’Afrique managing director Suzanne Rousseau, who has been with the festival since the beginning. “Our survival has been closely linked with the commercial evolution of world music. We arrived (in 1987) just a couple of years before Peter Gabriel launched his Real World Records label, and we were embraced by the European music press, such as Radio France Internationale and the BBC, who have a world audience. Over the years we have introduced many artists to North America.”
The 31st edition of Nuits d’Afrique, which runs from Tuesday to Sunday, July 23, will present more than 700 artists from 34 countries in some 145 concerts and activities, presented on indoor and outdoor stages for what is anticipated to be more than 500,000 spectators.
That’s a long way from Nuits d’Afrique’s humble beginnings, when founder Lamine Touré produced the inaugural fest at his iconic 150-seat Club Balattou on St-Laurent Blvd., where such world-music superstars as Youssou N’Dour and Angélique Kidjo made their North American debuts or early career appearances.
“One of the keys to our success and longevity is the relationships we have developed with artists over the years,” Rousseau said. “They know we will support them, help develop their careers, and they seek out the advice of Touré when they are in Montreal. We are truly passionate about these artists — we are not in it just to make money. The culture is our priority. That is what we have built our festival on, and that is why artists look forward to play at Nuits d’Afrique.
“I remember our first year in 1987 we booked Papa Wemba for his first concert in Montreal, at Balattou. There were so many people he agreed to do a second show that same night, and when he returned to play at the FrancoFolies’ Nuit Africaine at Le Spectrum in November 1990, he made a point of coming by Balattou to pay his respects to Touré. That is the kind of affection and loyalty musicians and music fans have for Touré and Nuits d’Afrique.”
Rousseau said the success of Nuits d’Afrique has also contributed to the success of shows in other festivals. Fakoly drew a large audience at Les FrancoFolies on June
18, she said, because “we built that crowd. He’s been playing at our festival for years. The multicultural crowd they got was because of our work.”
The flip side, of course, is the success of world music at Les FrancoFolies and the jazz fest pays dividends for Nuits d’Afrique. As the world music audience grows, so does the appeal of Nuits d’Afrique, which is no longer seen as a musical ghetto. Rather, it is seen by many fans as the home of world music in Montreal.
“Each year we attend the WOMEX world music expo and work with other festivals in other cities to bring artists to North America for more than one date,” said Rousseau. “That is also part of the success of Nuits d’Afrique. World music fans know we are here, that we will continue to develop new artists, and bring back their favourites.”