Ambasse bey

Ambasse bey or ambas-i-bay is a style of folk music and dance from Cameroon. The music is based on commonly available instruments, especially guitar, with percussion provided by sticks and bottles. [Mbaku 197.] The music is faster-paced than assiko, an older form of Cameroonian popular folk music. [Hudgens and Trillo 1183.]

Ambasse bey originated among the Yabassi ethnic group ["Guide touristique" 131.] and grew popular in Douala after World War II. Through the 1950s and 1960s, the style evolved in the Cameroonian Littoral. In the mid-1960s, Eboa Lotin performed a style of ambasse bey on harmonica and guitar that was the earliest form of makossa, a style that quickly came to overshadow its predecessor and become Cameroon's most popular form of indigenous music. [Mbaku 197–8.] Ambasse bey was revived to an extent by Cameroonian singer Sallé John. [DeLancey and DeLancey 184.]

Notes

References

* Chrispin, Pettang, directeur, "Cameroun: Guide touristique." Paris: Les Éditions Wala.
* DeLancey, Mark W., and Mark Dike DeLancey (2000): "Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon" (3rd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press.
* Hudgens, Jim, and Richard Trillo (1999). "West Africa: The Rough Guide". 3rd ed. London: Rough Guides Ltd.
* Mbaku, John Mukum (2005). "Culture and Customs of Cameroon". Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.