Guem

Born in Batna, Algeria on March 9th, 1947 to an Algerian mother and a Nigerian father, famed percussionist Abdelmadjid “Guem” Guemguem first cut his teeth as a valued member of several local outfits before relocating to Paris, where he’d find his big break as a musician in his early twenties despite having initially set his sights on a footballing career. Crafting rich, effervescent soundscapes with his intricate arrangements of traditional African drums including djembes and darbukas, he soon landed a record deal with French specialist label Le Chant du Monde, with whom he released a debut album, Percussions Africaines, in 1973. Between a packed schedule of sessions and shows alongside jazz heavyweights including Steve Lacy and Colette Magny – facilitated through Paris’s American Center for Art & Culture – he found the time to record a breakthrough 1978 LP with local ensemble Zaka Percussion, who had come up in the late ‘70s under his tutelage. Upping his output considerably in the following decades and occasionally releasing multiple albums in the space of a single year, Guemguem went on to land high-profile national placements in the world of television and sync, with his 1987 opus, "Le Serpent", eventually soundtracking the late ‘90s talk show Ça se discute. Spurred on by wanderlust throughout many of his travails, he journeyed to Brazil to record 1981’s O Universo Ritmico de Guem, a celebration of Afro-Brazilian musical culture, and returned to the concept album format in 2011 with Mon Paris, which comprised twenty instrumental efforts each inspired by a different Parisian arrondissement. Ten years later, Guemguem passed away in the French capital on January 22nd, 2021 at the age of 73.

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