Eusèbe Jaojoby (born July 29, 1955), commonly known by his surname Jaojoby, is a composer and singer of salegy, a musical style of northwestern Madagascar. He is the most enduringly popular of the originators of the salegy style that emerged in the 1970s. After a short hiatus from singing in the 1980s while pursuing a career in journalism, Jaojoby rose to national prominence with his 1988 hit "Samy Mandeha Samy Mitady" and refocused his career entirely on his music, becoming a full-time professional musician in 1993. He has since released several successful albums and continues to tour at home and abroad. Jaojoby has been called the most popular singer in Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands.[1] He is widely referred to as the "King of Salegy".[2]
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Eusèbe Jaojoby was born on July 29, 1955, in the village of Anboahangibe, near Sambava in the northeastern coastal Sava Region of Madagascar. Jaojoby and his twelve younger brothers and sisters were raised Catholic, and early experiences singing hymns in the local church choir[2] and traditional folk songs at moonlight village festivals led him to recognize his vocal talent. At the age of 15, Jaojoby's father sent him to continue his studies in Diego-Suarez, one of the six regional capitals at the time. The town was home to a large contingent of French soldiers and expatriates, and contemporary Western genres were commonly heard on the radio and in the town's many nightclubs.[3] Jaojoby was inspired by these styles and particularly by Freddy Ranarison, who in the 1960s became the first to use an electric guitar to perform coastal Malagasy musical styles.[4]
One month after moving to Diego-Suarez, Jaojoby entered a local talent competition and managed to win over the many other contestants despite singing unaccompanied and without a microphone. He began to sing at nightclubs whenever the opportunity presented itself. The uncle with whom he was lodging sent word of Jaojoby's activities to the young man's parents, who consulted a priest before giving their son permission to continue exploring his musical talents on one condition: he must continue to perform well at school.[2] Jaojoby agreed to this provision, studying during the day and performing at night for the next several years.[3] In 1972 he began singing with the Saigonais nightclub's well-established house band, Los Matadores. This group principally catered to the Western clientele by performing cover songs and rhythm-and-blues compositions, occasionally incorporating traditional instruments (kabosy, drums)[4] or experimenting with the performance of Malagasy musical styles using electric guitar, bass and drum kit.[2]
Experimental blending of Western and Malagasy musical elements was occurring simultaneously among a number of northwestern bands and musicians of Jaojoby's generation. Although no one person can be credited with creating the modern salegy genre, Jaojoby ranks among the earliest originators of the nascent musical style. Desiring more freedom to write songs and further develop the syncretic modern salegy style, in 1975 Jaojoby left Los Matadores for The Players, another regional band that was less well-established but more willing to take risks. The band was managed by a Chinese shopkeeper who provided them with a sound system and generator. The band toured for the next four years to increasing success, recording two 45rpm singles and performing in villages all along the northwest coast before disbanding in 1979.[2]
After briefly trying to perform with a new band, Kintana,[5] Jaojoby moved to Antananarivo, where he studied sociology for two years at the local university before accepting an offer to work for the national radio as a journalist at the end of 1980.[2] The following year, while waiting for a bus, Jaojoby was approached by a stranger who invited him to audition that evening at the Papillon bar at the Hilton hotel. Even before Jaojoby had completed his cover of James Brown's "Sex Machine",[5] the owner offered Jaojoby a contract to give regular evening performances there with the Rabeson family, popular jazz performers in their own right.[4] For the next three years the young man spent his days at the national radio and his evenings singing at the Papillon,[2] excepting a short interlude in 1982 when he was sent to East Berlin to complete an advanced course at the International Institute of Journalism.[5] Jaojoby was promoted to Director of the Regional Information Service in Diego-Suarez in 1984, necessitating his relocation back to the northwest coast and what appeared to be an end to his musical career.[2]
After several years having focused entirely on his career with the Regional Information Service, Jaojoby was approached in 1987 by Frenchman Pierre Henri Donat to contribute several recordings to the first ever salegy compilation album, entitled Les Grands Maîtres du Salegy ("Grand Masters of Salegy"). The runaway success of one of the tracks he composed and performed, "Samy Mandeha Samy Mitady", elevated salegy from a regional genre to one of nationwide popularity,[6][3] leading a newspaper to declare him the "King of Salegy". High demand for live performances led Jaojoby to return to Antananarivo in 1988, where he recruited former bandmates from Los Matadores and Les Players to form an eponymous band. Jaojoby begin touring regularly both at home and abroad,[2] performing their first international concerts in Paris in 1989.[3] In the meantime, he continued to work as a press attaché for the Ministry of Transport, Meteorology and Tourism from 1990 until 1993, at which point he left his job to become a full-time musician.[2][6]
The 1992 release of Jaojoby's first full-length album, entitled Salegy!, was facilitated by fRoots magazine editor Ian Anderson, who had worked with Jaojoby to record several of his tracks for a radio broadcast two years prior.[2] Jaojoby's second album, Velono, was the first salegy album to be recorded in France,[7] as well as the first of his albums to be produced in a professional-quality recording studio.[1] Following the 1994 release of Velono, Jaojoby became a regular on the international music festival circuit[6] and performed at such events as WOMAD in Reading,[8] the Festivale du Bout du Monde in Brittany, WOMEX in Spain,[9] the Festivale des Musiques Métisses in Angoulême, the MASA Festival in Abidjan, and similar events in Germany, Holland and Portugal. The excitement of this rise to international celebrity was offset in 1995 by the death of the band's original drummer, Jean-Claude Djaonarana, who had first performed with Jaojoby as a member of Los Matadores.[2]
Jaojoby's success and popularity attained new heights with the 1998 release of E! Tiako. He was named "Artist of the Year" in Madagascar for two consecutive years (1998-1999),[6] and the single "Malemilemy" continued to light up dance floors and airwaves across the island more than a year after the album was released.[2] In July 1999, Jaojoby was named Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Population Fund and supported the UN's activities in Madagascar related to raising awareness of STDs, unplanned pregnancy, and other concerns relevant to the Malagasy youth population. The lyrics of his songs commonly address social issues, typified by a track on E! Tiako that encourages the use of condoms to avoid contracting HIV/AIDS.[6]
Aza Arianao was recorded over five days in the summer of 2000 and released the following year.[10] In the wake of its success, Jaojoby performed to an audience of 50,000 partisans of candidate Marc Ravalomanana less than a month before the deeply divisive 2001 presidential elections.[2]
Jaojoby's follow-up 2004 album Malagasy was recorded in semi-live conditions on the island of Reunion.[1] The album's songs addressed themes of optimism and national reconciliation, although the artist announced that he would not involve himself in national politics in the future.[11] The same year he toured extensively in France, the United States and Canada.[2]
While traveling to Antananarivo after a performance at the 2006 Donia Festival in Nosy Be, Jaojoby and his family were involved in a road accident that left the singer severely injured. Four broken ribs, lung damage and a fractured pelvis necessitated emergency surgery in Reunion, three weeks of hospitalization, and prolonged physical therapy to enable Jaojoby to regain the ability to walk. Fans of the singer organized through mail and internet communication and successfully raised the funds required to cover medical expenses related to the accident. The artist went on to make a full recovery.[12]
The March 2008 release of Donnant, Donnant celebrated Jaojoby's roots as a cabaret performer of soul, funk and other Western popular genres.[2] The track listing included previously unreleased pop songs written by the artist in the 1970s and 1980s in French, Malagasy, Creole and English. Later that year, in September, he became the first Malagasy musician to perform at the prestigious and historic Olympia music hall in Paris,[9] where seating was removed at his request to provide space for dancing.[13]
[Jaojoby] dusted off salegy and freed it of its image as a primitive music that served only to relieve peasants exhausted by their labors... The soul-tinted voice of Jaojoby, warm and powerful, sings about love and life with the frankness typical of northerners, marked with ancestral wisdom and popular philosophy. For the first time, one realizes that salegy can be really listened to and not just inspire maniacal dancing. To the oubliettes with the minimalist "hard salegy" of the 1970s with its three chords, drum solos and Farfisa organ! With Jaojoby, salegy passed from a marginal genre into the ranks of essential culture, soon afterward imitated by a wave of others...
The roots of Jaojoby's musical style begin with his childhood exposure to the Western-Malagasy syncretism of local church hymns, and the rhythm, harmonies and form of the traditional antsa style of northern Madagascar. The antsa is a group style common across northern Madagascar characterized by minor-key polyharmonies over a particular and highly syncopated multi-rhythmic hand-clapping or other percussion accompaniment.[14] Upon relocating to Diego-Suarez, Jaojoby was exposed to Western artists and musical genres,[3] as well as the music of Freddy Ranarison, the first local artist to popularize the adaptation of traditional Malagasy styles to the electric guitar.[4] Singing with Los Matadores provided the artist with the opportunity to cover the hits of his idols, including Otis Redding, Percy Sledge and James Brown. During his years performing with this band and his subsequent group, Les Players, Jaojoby adeptly covered hits from a vast range of regional and international genres ranging from the jerk, tango and cha-cha-cha to the sega and slow romantic ballads. Together, these musical influences formed the basis of Jaojoby's style.[3]
In the 1960s bands such as Orchestra Liberty began performing the antsa rhythm on modern drum kits with accompanying guitar or accordion replacing the traditional vocals. It was not until the 1970s that bands like Los Matadores and Les Players adapted the traditional vocal style to the newly electrified antsa. Guitar solos were inspired by the performance style of traditional Malagasy instruments like the valiha and marovany, combined with that of guitar solo work popularized in the Congo and Ivory Coast.[3] As a singer with Los Matadores, Jaojoby would occasionally fill the instrumental breaks of R&B covers with improvised vocals inspired by the salegy tradition, to the jubilation of the young Malagasy listeners gathered outside the club's doors.[5] Later, with The Players, Jaojoby and a handful of peers in northern urban areas experimented with incorporating vocals into the early instrumental salegy. Jaojoby described the adaptation of the traditional antsa style to modern instruments in the following terms: "The singing is that of the cattle herders moving their herds. The guitar imitates the great masters of the valiha. The keyboards provide the feeling of the traditional accordions, and the bass draws from the sound of the five traditional tuned drums. As far as the drum kit, well, it reproduces the ambiance of a Malagasy crowd on a day of celebration with all the hand clapping, shakers and feet stomping the earth." The adaptation of the salegy rhythm to the modern drum kit was invented by Jean Claude Djaonarana, drummer of Los Matadores, who would go on to rejoin Jaojoby's band from 1988 until his death in 1995. This rhythm has become the standard used by all salegy percussionists across the island.[5]
The quality of Jaojoby's voice, in addition to the creativity of his compositions and willingness to experiment, helped to distinguish the artist from his peers. His voice has been described as a "supple tenor"[5] that is "clear, powerful and energetic... his trademark, which makes him stand out in the Madagascan musical panorama".[2] Jaojoby has been credited with popularizing the salegy genre both within Madagascar and on the international music scene. The popularity of two derivative versions of salegy - malessa and baoenjy - have likewise been attributed to him.[4]
Jaojoby's wife and children play an active part in his musical career and since the mid-1990s have formed part of the standard lineup of his band. His wife, Claudine Robert Zafinera, provides backing and occasional lead vocals. The couple's son, Elie Lucas, plays lead guitar while their daughters, Eusebia and Roseliane, provide backing vocals and enliven performances as stage dancers.[15] In addition to supporting Jaojoby's band, his wife and children have undertaken side projects of their own. His children formed a band called Jaojoby Jr. that performs covers of their father's music as well as some of their own original salegy compositions.[3] Saramba, a group created by Claudine in 2005,[16] performs the traditional form of salegy using only accordion, percussion and vocals.[17]
On June 3, 2011, Jaojoby opened a new cabaret venue called "Jao's Pub" in the Ambohipo neighborhood of Antananarivo,[16] where the singer and his family reside.[3]
| Title[1][5][18] | Released | Label | Tracks (Length) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mila Anao | 2012 | CRC | 14 (unknown) |
| Live au Bato Fou: Jaojoby | 2010 | Discorama | 12 (58'55") |
| Donnant Donnant (Le Grand Bal) | 2008 | unknown | unknown |
| Malagasy | 2004 | Discorama | 12 (55'18") |
| Aza Arianao | 2000 | Indigo - Label Bleu | 12 (50'15") |
| E Tiako | 1998 | Indigo - Label Bleu | 11 (44'31") |
| Velono | 1994 | Indigo - Label Bleu | 11 (55'11") |
| Salegy! | 1992 | Xenophile (1996 - US)/Rogue (1992 - UK) | 10 (53'53") |
| Agny rô | 1978 | Discomad | 2 (6'57") |
| Tsaikijoby | 1976 | Discomad | 2 (7'54") |