19, August 2020
Makossa: Marthe Zambo at death’s door amid a battle with diabetes 0
Renowned Cameroonian musician Marthe Zambo is suffering from chronic diabetes and does not have the means to afford medication including paying her rents. Marthe Zambo made her current plight public in an interview with state radio and television CRTV on Wednesday, August 19, 2020.
The Makossa icon has lost weight and after numerous signals she incessantly flashed out to her fans all over the world, it is now evidently clear the woman with the nightingale voice is simply waiting to die.
The singer’s setbacks don’t only stop with her illness and her inability to foot her medical bills. In the next few days, she could be evicted from her home for unpaid rents.
“I have too many problems. We call it Nanga Boko in our local Cameroonian parlance! I don’t know where to go from here! I’m left to myself. I can’t pay my rents anymore,” she confessed.
It is vital to include in this report that on Saturday, August 17, 2019, Marthe Zambo and the late Mama Nguea, who died of diabetes, had received financial support from the Ministry of Culture following an appeal for help that the two artists had launched at the time. But it would appear that the token from the Biya regime was not enough to enable Marthe Zambo to take care of her basic needs.
By Rita Akana
10, September 2020
Music: Ronald Bell of Kool and the Gang dies at 68 0
Ronald Bell — a co-founder of Kool and the Gang, the heavyweight funk group behind hits like “Celebration,” “Jungle Boogie” and “Ladies’ Night” — died Wednesday. He was 68 years old.
The performer died at his home in the US Virgin Islands, the group’s publicist Angelo Ellerbee told AFP, without specifying a cause of death.
Bell founded Kool and the Gang with his brother Robert and friends Dennis Thomas, Robert Mickens, Charles Smith, George Brown and Ricky West in the early 1960s, fusing a foundation of jazz with smatterings of funk, disco, R&B and pop.
The group became a major smash in the 1970s, its brassy funk putting it in a class with Earth, Wind and Fire, the Isley Brothers and Sly and the Family Stone.
Kool and the Gang scored a Grammy in 1978 for their contributions to the soundtrack for “Saturday Night Fever” starring John Travolta.
The group was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.
Born in Youngstown, Ohio in 1951, Bell also went by his Muslim name Khalis Bayyan.
A self-taught musician, he wrote some of the ensemble’s major hits including “Celebration,” which is still a popular anthem at sporting events.
The group remains a DJ favorite and is heavily sampled especially in the rap world, its tracks appearing in songs by artists including Jay-Z, Nas, NWA, Tupac, The Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Dogg, A Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes.
Source: AFP