Hot Koki

André-Marie Tala built his first guitar as a boy in Bandjoun, with a childhood friend, out of bamboo ribs and fishing line, and taught himself the rhythms he had grown up with. He lost his sight suddenly at fifteen. Two years later, when Radio Cameroun invited local youngsters to sing during a presidential visit to Bafoussam, he turned up with the bamboo guitar and was a hit. A meeting with Manu Dibango at twenty changed his course: Dibango told him to look to the French record companies, and with his family's support Tala flew to Paris and signed with Decca. Hot Koki, released in 1975, was the record that made him an international name. It belongs to tchamassi, the Afro-jazz style he is known for. It also brought him into conflict with one of the most famous musicians in the world. According to the French Wikipedia account, James Brown, then at the height of his career, released a track titled The Hustle that copied Tala's song. Tala went to court. After four years of legal battles, in 1978 the judgment went his way and Brown was ordered to hand over all the royalties. Tala went on to a long career, compared from the start with Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, and decorated several times by the Cameroonian state. But Hot Koki remains the song where a blind self-taught guitarist from the Grassfields stood up to the Godfather of Soul and won.