Meiway
Born March 17, 1962 in Abidjan, Meiway is an Ivorian writer-composer-performer-arranger and producer. Nicknamed “Professor Awolowoh or the genius of Kpalèzo”, he had considerable influence over the musical culture of his country. He is one of the greatest African musician thanks to his consistency in his work and his multidimensional talent. A pioneer of the musical genre Zoblazo (the white handkerchief dance) he creates and his marketing, which he helped to popularize first in Ivory Coast and then throughout the world, he is considered a major African artist of the 21st century. century.
He is perceived by his fans as the creator of dance and the musical genre that best symbolizes Ivorian cultural heritage beyond its borders.
He creates a musical style, the Zoblazo, inspired by the folk rhythms of the south of Côte d’Ivoire that he declines throughout his career. He is credited with several other nicknames “the last of the Federates”, “Abrobia star”, “Abraham Golgotha”, “The 13th Apostle”, “The Prophet Spirit Kpokporikpo”, “The genius of Kpalèzou” He is also ambassador of the fight against AIDS in Côte d’Ivoire, Ambassador of Nzima Kotoko and Ambassador of Grand Bassam World Heritage of UNESCO.
His father, a commercial agent in a local company, is an amateur accordionist and his mother sings in the Sainte Cécile choir of the Catholic parish of Treichville in Abidjan. Both are also part of several local traditional groups. Naturally, Frédéric is initiated very early to the choirs of the choir.
On the benches of the College of the Highway in Treichville (Abidjan), he binds a friendship between him and Kopa, the main singer of Pace, the musical group of the establishment. By accompanying him regularly to the rehearsals, he ends up replacing one of the singers and learns percussion and drums. In 1978 he was classified with the group Pace second to the final of Podium (TV show contest amateur groups in Ivory Coast). The group does not survive the distribution of the premium that proves conflicting between the members. He therefore founded the following year Genitals and the Lynx, group with which he won the 1980 Pedestal edition (radio contest). In 1981, his amateur career took off, when with his group Genitals, he won the first prize Podium, coveted in Côte d’Ivoire.
For Frederic, become Meiway, solicitations and rewards follow one another. Tours, galas, concerts, end of year balls, Genitals crisscross the country. This is the opportunity for Meiway to sow the first seeds of Zoblazo (his musical identity) and impose his compositions.
Meiway saw his adolescence as a family until the day he decided to leave Côte d’Ivoire for France to deepen his musical knowledge. He arrived in Paris in September 1985. In parallel with his apprenticeship with the one who would become his first and only arranger Bamba Yang for his first album Ayibebou, he soon created a new group: Défense d’Ivoire in the city of Meaux, with a survivor of the Genitals, Kimo the pianist. They won the prize of the Parisian club Excalibur and made a small career in the French capital and its suburbs.
