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Artist
Gnonnas Pedro
12+ albums
beninafricansalsaafricacuban
about
Gnonnas Youssou Pierre (Gnonnas Pedro), singer, trumpeter and saxophonist: born Lokossa, Benin 10 January 1943; (three sons, four daughters); died Cotonou, Benin 12 August 2004. The late-blooming singer and musician Gnonnas Pedro achieved world-wide fame when he joined the African salsa supergroup Africando in 1996. But he had been well known in his hometown of Cotonou, Benin, since becoming active on the music scene there in the early 1960s. He has been described as a jack-of-all-trades for his many talents, which included playing trumpet and sax, singing and dancing. He also tailored his style to the vagaries of fashion in a country which has never produced much of a distinctive musical culture due to the overbearing influence of its neighbours. But it was his early and abiding penchant for Latin sounds which eventually brought him wider recognition in the twilight of his career. Having recorded a single with the French crooner Charles Aznavour in 1964, Pedro spent the Sixties leading his group Pedro y Sus Panchos. They exploited the vogue for Latin music in West Africa at the time, combining it with folklore from the Fon and Yoruba peoples in styles such as agbadja. Pedro enjoyed popularity in Nigeria during the 1970s with Yoruba highlife hits such as "Feso Jaiye" with his band Orchestra Poly-Rythmo. The following decade his band were known as Ses Dadjes. He recorded prolifically for various labels in Benin, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, and in 1984 began a professional rel
