Alane

Alane is sung in Cameroon's Duala language, and in 1997 that did not stop it from becoming one of the biggest songs in Europe. Wes, a Cameroonian singer, wrote it, and the French producer Michel Sanchez composed, arranged and produced the track, wrapping Wes's chants in polished dance beats. It was the debut single from his first album, Welenga. The video was directed by Philippe Gautier, with choreography by Mia Frye, who had previously choreographed the Macarena for Los del Río. In France the single was backed by TF1, Fun Radio and RTL, and it spent ten weeks at number one there and 25 weeks in the top 50; one British dance reviewer reported more than two million copies already sold in France. It also went to number one in Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands, stayed 18 weeks in the German top ten, and reached number 11 in the UK. Critics heard it as part of a wave of Afro-European dance hits, African chants meeting club production, and Music Week called it haunting. One listener carried it with him for decades. The German DJ Robin Schulz had loved Alane since he was ten, and in 2020 he contacted Wes through their label, met him in Paris and re-recorded the song with him in Germany. The new video gathered dancers from 12 countries, from Kenya and Tunisia to South Korea and Mexico. More than twenty years on, a song in Duala was once again filling dance floors far from where it was sung.