The Edmonton Journal
June 20, 2000

Mighty Popo a potpourri of musical styles
He draws from African rhythms, blues and reggae

Roger Levesque
Special to The Journal
Edmonton

Singer-guitarist Jacques Murigande comes from what has been one of Africa's darkest troublespots over the past decade.

He was born in Burundi, the child of refugees from neighbouring Rwanda. But as the Ottawa-based bandleader Mighty Popo, he's not just singing about the strife back home:

"I am on a mission to inform people about the history of my people," he explains. "There have been so many misrepresentations of Africans and the black man. I'm trying to show the positive side of the African and to just try and bring people together through music."

It’s only natural that Popo/Murigande's musical vision takes such a wide angle. He's been drinking-in varied musical styles since he was a child and today he draws on musical elements from all over Africa, to American blues and r'n'b strains, and Caribbean reggae, zouk and soca. It's a hybrid high-energy dance music.

"I try to search out rhthyms that are less known here," he says. "I try to get inspired from new music."

Check out Dunia Yote, his second independently produced disc (now distributed by Montreal's Fusion III). At some points the infectious grooves might point to South or West Africa but his guitar can whirl at a high pitch like soukous music from Zaire, or bluesey styles from the American south. He sings in French, English, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Pulaar and Wolof. Popo believes there's a natural relationship between all these styles.

His touring band is also a polyglot of African and North American players: Vince Halfhide handles back-up rhythm guitar and puts in slide techniques, Ras Mpala plays keyboards and Brian Magner blows saxophone along with bassist Patrick Giunta, drummer Ross Murray (who produced Dunia Yote), and Popo's own guitar and vocal.

Popo recalls hearing lots of American music on radio or records as he was growing up, including the likes of James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and folk blues. He was often struck by their similarities to indigenous musicians of his homeland.

"One day I took this recording of Lightning Hopkins to play for my grandmother and she thought maybe it was someone from next door. There's an amazing similarity to Rwandan music and the delta blues too, and I also find that with John Lee Hooker and the early plantation recordings of Muddy Waters."

Popo got a toy harmonica as a kid and his uncle always had a guitar around. He says he knew he wanted to make music but he didn't get really serious until he wound up in Canada in 1987, a 19-year-old French-speaking landed immigrant with $20 to his name. He took training in electronics and got a job that allowed him to work on his music on the side.

Before long he was a fixture on the Ottawa blues scene (in fact Popo just won two of Ottawa's "Undies" independent music awards last week including Best World Musician). He found himself touring Canada with Dutch Mason and backing up Andy J. Forest in New Orleans and Europe and his 1996 debut recording Tamba included some of the same players he still works with.

But Dunia Yote is a further expansion of Popo's sound incorporating folk songs and praise songs from Africa, a Baaba Meal tune and his own original numbers drawing on traditional mythology and contemporary social issues. For many listeners the overwhelming reaction is to dance but it comes with Popo's messages about Africa’s problems and African pride. Now 33, he adds:

"I want the people of my home-land to wake up to their history and to look for a better future for their children."