With nearly fifty years of musical career, singer and composer Chris Combette was passing through the 2026 International Nuits d’Afrique Festival. He was on the Balattou stage on July 15th, with his “Angels,” Patrick Plénet on bass, Aymeric Létard on keyboards, and Éric Valérius on drums.
INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS COMBETTE AND ALAIN BRUNET
It is a complete, authentic, and experienced know-how and way of life that Combette presents from the very first notes. We hear a fairly complete panorama of the titles that have made his success over half a century, from La Danse de Flore to Maroni, passing through Salambô, Lè siel si ba, Lévanjil dan bouch (a sharp critique of religious colonisation, on swaying rhythms – “they left us the Bible, and took the gold”), Les Enfants de Gorée, and many others. A very generous program over two sets of more than an hour each.
Songs that talk about life, love, everyday life in Guadeloupe, French Guiana, or elsewhere in the Caribbean, stories that are told there, a bit like a Provençal troubadour did in mediaeval France. All of this to the rhythms of 20th-century Afro-descendant music, reggae, cumbia, Creole folk, a bit of zouk.
The man presents his songs with a calm humour and a class that is noticeable in all those artists from a generation of gentlemen who knew how to express themselves with restraint and a lot of honesty. Seeing and listening to him, I thought of the great Henri Salvador, who had that kind of educated charm.
If you want to get a (very) good idea of the concert, listen to his album Chris Combette & Angels – the Live released last January. It was almost exactly what we had on Wednesday evening.
