Joe Mboule, whose real name is Njoh Mboule
Ludovic Georges is born on 30 April 1953 and died on 11 October 2015 in Douala.
Joe Mboule's musical career spans four decades.
He comes from a very musical family that
includes famous artists like his cousin Charlotte Mbango and his uncle the
singer/songwriter Eboa Lotin, who was one of the co-founders of modern Makossa.
His father played fiddle and banjo in his lost hours and his mother sang in the
local church choir.
Joe Mboule began his career as an artist in 1972, at the age of 19. He burst
onto the Cameroonian and African music scene with the title Mpuly Mwa Salamander in 1973, which he
recorded with buddies at Radio Douala. As a result of this success, he signs
with Safari Ambiance. Colette Maniatakis the director of Safari Ambiance gave
him carte blanche to freely express his creativity. Joe Mboule returned to the
studio to write Malabar (Longuè le Ndé
Sport). This album saw the participation of some of the members of what is
called at the time, the national team of makossa including Aladji Touré and
Toto Guillaume.
Malabar (Longuè lé ndé sport) was released
in 1979 and was with over 20.000 sold copies a big musical success. The
magazine Bingo described Joe Mboule as "a singer of charm, a musician in
the proper sense of the term. Although rhythmic remains conventional, his
choices of instruments and arrangements announce an unusual wind in music”.
During the years that followed, Joe scored
several other hits like Muna ndô in 1982
and O si Linga in 1986. Beside his own musical career, he founded the label
Tempo Records in 1980 with which he produced some of the young talents of the
time such as Ben Decca and Bebey Black. Joe Mboule has also been fully involved
in the issue of copyright and the promotion of francophone artists in various
organizations such as the Conseil Francophone de la Chanson and the International
Federation of Actors. His last album L’essentiel
came out in 2012.
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