Petit Yode and L'enfant Siro's "President" - An ethnographic analysis

President by Petit Yode and L'enfant Siro (2002)  

In 2002, it was against a background of revolts, rebellion and political turmoil that president Laurent Gbagbo was sworn into office. As the release of their album was coincidental with these events, it may have seemed fitting for Petit Yode & L’Enfant Siro to include a song discussing the socio-political conditions of Ivory Coast at the time, specifically as they related to Laurent Gbagbo’s rise to power. Even though the song only offers a limited amount of mostly textual data, accessible only through its lyrics, there is still value in dedicating efforts to study it so as to better comprehend the complex socio-political context of Ivory Coast in that particular era (i.e. 2002-2010).

Prior to diving into a semantic analysis of the song’s lyrics, it may be more important to initially note the genre in which this song is performed. This song is in fact delivered in the Zouglou genre, a musical style noted for being contentious and used to denounce the ills of society. Yet, the song’s message seems to oppose this convention since the artistes appear to offer their support the newly elected president. The phrase “C’est toi mon president” (translated: you are my president) chorused through the song suggests evidence of such support. As the artistes juxtapose these genre conventions against this non-dissenting message, questions immediately come to mind. Is this a simple appropriation of the genre for other purposes (i.e. the stage of social reconstruction as described by Emielu in his social reconstructionism model[1])? Or were there perhaps other social and political forces present in Ivory Coast at the time that limited the autonomy Yode & Siro’s discourse?

It is worth noting that even though the country was divided between government-controlled and rebel factions, the discursive space offered through music at the time remained heavily controlled and influenced by the government, even if indirectly.  Thus, any musician (or artist for that matter) who openly criticized the established power was automatically labelled as “anti-patriotic” and was quickly ostracized from society. Iconic musician Tiken Jah Fakoly and writer Ahmadou Kourouma are examples of such artists who confronted Laurent Gbagbo’s politics and were subsequently forced into exile. As the country became partitioned due to conflict, so did the music. Songs produced during that period fell into one of two categories “Loyalist/Patriotic” music and “Other” music.

This song may be said to belong to the “Other” category but also forms part of an emerging genre of popular African music termed by Daniel Künzler and Uta Reuster-Jahn as the “Mr President: musical open letter” (Künzler & Reuster-Jahn, 2012). If these artistes expected to gain any form of government-sponsored airplay, they needed to exercise a certain level of obligatory self-censorship. However, if actions can at times speak louder than words, one can speculate that their decision to sing this song in the contentious Zouglou style is perhaps a shy, yet muted expression of resistance against the new political order. Many Zouglou artistes chose, after all, to either remain silent during this period or switch to the less lyric-centric styles (e.g. Coupe-Decale).

By using heavy metaphors associated with sports (most likely soccer), the song describes the new president as an ex-, and heavily critical spectator of the political scene who has now been bestowed with referee duties.  The performers warn him that all the criticisms he used to cast on other political actors will in turn be cast on him.

Original	Translation
Aujourd’hui tu es l’arbitre et tu es sur le terrain/Il y a d’autres dans les tribunes qui crient sur toi comme tu faisais auparavant/Alors ne dis pas qu’on veut te tuer	Today you’re the referee et you’re on the pitch. There are others in the stands yelling at you like you used to do to others. So don’t say that they’re trying to stress you out

The choice of soccer as a metaphor to describe the political situation may be interpreted as an homage to the popularity of the sport in Ivorian society, but also as a translation apparatus to render to complex political context accessible to an audience who may not fully understand it. While this song is mostly rendered in French and can hence be understood by any person with an average understanding of the language, it is important to take Nouchi (Ivory Coast slang) into consideration in our analysis. A particular adage resonates throughout the piece. It says “Il faut nous excuser mais en Zouglou on dit “Gbeh est mieux que Dra” (translated: You must excuse us but in Zouglou we say “Gbeh is better than Dra”). This saying remained cryptic to me for a long time until I solicited the help of a few Ivorian friends in my attempts to decipher its meaning. Despite the variety of answers I received, they all suggested an interpretation along the lines of “It is better to be told the hard truth now, than to find oneself in an embarrassing situation at a later date”. “Gbeh” could then be ostensibly refer to the “hard truth” while “Dra” refers to “embarrassing situations”. If words used in the context of Zouglou language do not share a one-to-one relationship with English, one should then exert caution in interpreting (linguistically, ethnographically or otherwise) lest the true meanings remain persistently elusive.

Even if this song appears to be directed towards Laurent Gbagbo, his name is never uttered. The song thus becomes liberated from the historical context of its occurrence. It is a song that may have originally been directed to one person, yet remains universally applicable to any African president who may have gained power through “calamitous circumstances”. The reminder below is testament to this claim:

Original	Translation
Tu te rappelles President, ce sont les marches qui t’ont amene au pouvoir Mr le president ne pertube pas les marches	Mr President, you must remember that you came to power through protests. Therefore Mr President, don’t suppress protests.

Today 12 years after its original release, the relevance of this cautionary song is all the more emphasized as the ex-president of neighboring Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore, was recently deposed through popular uprising after a 27 year reign. The new acting head of state, Isaac Zida, may very well benefit from the same warnings articulated in this music. Whereas archival records often offer an immobile depiction of the state of society at a given time, the bifurcated aspect of this song as a contextual depiction of socio-political landscape of Ivory Coast circa 2002, and as an independent piece that can transcend spatial and temporal boundaries makes it especially compelling. It therefore needs not be situated in a particular geographical context but rather amongst a set of given social circumstances which serve to highlight its relevance.

Bibliography

Emielu, A. (2011). Some theoretical perspectives. Popular Music, 371–388.

Kohlhagen, D. (2005). FRIME, ESCROQUERIE ET COSMOPOLITISME: Le succès du « coupé-décalé » en Afrique et ailleurs. Politique africaine, 92-105.

Künzler, D., & Reuster-Jahn, U. (2012). “Mr. President”: Musical Open Letters as Political Commentary in Africa. Africa Today, 89-113.

Yode, P., & Siro, L. (2002). President. Abidjan.

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[1] Social reconstruction: The main features of this stage include: multiple modes of expressions which may or may not directly derive from the original core essence; attempts at fashioning out a new direction and a new core essence for the product; and attempts at locating the musical stream within a new socio-economic, artistic and cultural space. (Emielu, 2011)