Premier Gaou

We all have some secret pop tune that is totally out of character for us (don't we?) and we don't really let anybody in on.....This is like that for me. I discovered it a few years ago in my friends' (who'd just come back from Senegal) CD collection (yeah, I SAID I'd go and walk around Manhattan watching people and listening to my Ipod, but I couldn't seem to get out of the house.....). I thought it had a nice melody, but was pretty damn poppy. The other tracks were merde.....but, this one, well, damn! Then, I heard Cheb I Sabbah play it at the Essaouira festival in morocco (everybody knew it and started jumping around and shouting by just the first bits of the track) and I thought oh yeah, sure, of course.....it was top of the pops in Casablanca......I kind of wrote it off as a sell out......but, then, I listened again. and again. and again. Sometimes, I even listen more than once. Like today. ;-)

Here's the long dancefloor mix.....Premier Gaou (Bob Sinclar Le Bisou Dub) by Magic System, From Premier Gaou: The Remixes. The original is slower and the production a little more casiotone. I like this one.

Jeez, and then I met Desta Haile (fabulous singer BTW!) yesterday who, totally independently brought up this song (I told her that I'd listened to the track, but I'd forgotten that I'd written the above little bit). From her, I learned that Magic System is actually from Abidjian, Ivory Coast. The lyrics talk about somebody whose stupidity is of the first order. There's that phrase....something like, everybody makes a mistake once, but twice and you're really a fool. Well, this person is even stupider. Or something like that. Desta, please come and leave a proper translation!