Droit Chemin

In the world of Congolese bands, a singer did not simply go solo. Fally Ipupa was conductor of Koffi Olomide's Quartier Latin International and bound by a seven-year contract when, in late 2005, the Kinshasa daily Le Potentiel reported that he had begun recording his own album with Koffi's backing. He was only the second musician, after drummer Titina Al Capone, allowed to make a solo record while staying in the band, and the first singer ever granted that permission. He told the journalist Naty Lokolé that he had simply written too many songs, and felt the time had come for a work entirely his own. There was resistance from some band members, but he pressed on, recording fifteen tracks with arranger Maïka Munan and players from Quartier Latin, while still singing on the band's own album at the same time. The Ivorian producer David Monsoh, who had met him back in 1998 and later said he had steered him towards Koffi so he could learn before going it alone, released the album in Paris on 10 June 2006. The title track, like Bakandja, leaned on ndombolo for the dance floor, while other songs went back to rumba or reached into R&B and pop, a rare mix in Congolese music then. The album was called Droit Chemin, the straight path, and it sold more than 100,000 copies in its first month, reportedly topping Congolese charts for nearly ten months. It is now counted among the records that defined a new generation of Congolese music, and it carried Fally Ipupa out of Koffi's shadow and onto a path of his own.