the only place on the net where you can find hidden music gems from all the world countries beyond the usual conventional routes! The Dugongo will guide you to the most remote corners in search of unconventional sounds, forgotten musical scenes and legendary artists, unknown outside their borders.
Born May 27, 1948 in Am-Timan, capital of the Salamat region in the southeast of Chad , Ahamat Saleh Rougalta known as “Hamed Gazonga” or “Master Gazonga” has been playing football since his childhood (goalkeeper ) then athletics before moving to Ndjamena where he survives with odd jobs.
In 1968, at the age of 20, he decided to take up music and make it his career. He then joined city groups before founding the orchestra L'International Challal, with which he toured throughout the country, going from village to village to broadcast his music and please. In these rural areas marked by poverty and which he knows well, Master Gazonga asks farmers who do not have financial means to pay their entry tickets with foodstuffs (millet, peanuts, rice, sorghum, rice, fish). dried, chickens, eggs, beans, etc.). Thus, he can resell them on the markets of the capital Ndjamena and pay his musicians. His numerous tours in all regions of the country will make L'International Challal one of the most popular groups in Chad.
In 1984, Maître Gazonga moved to Abidjan ( Ivory Coast ) where he rubbed shoulders with various artists and recorded “Les Jaloux Saboteurs” at the JBZ studio, the flagship title of his first album which immediately became a huge success. Drawing inspiration from his life in exile, he recounts the difficulties encountered by a foreigner living far from his country, the jealousies of the natives who deny him his modest success and the experience that a foreigner always faces.
Despite this popularity, he decided to return home where he released cassettes. In 1986, his famous title “Les Jaloux Saboteurs” was part of the soundtrack of the film “Black Mic Mac” by Thomas Gillou and Cheikh Doucouré, with Jacques Villeret and Isaac de Bankolé as star actors.
One of the most popular singers in his country, Maître Gazonga died on April 1, 2006 at the National General Reference Hospital (HGRN) in Ndjamena, Chad , following sudden and violent headaches. This unfortunate event occurring on April Fool's Day (April 1), his public did not initially believe in his disappearance.
Xamdam Sobirov was born on January 6, 1989 in a village in the Navbahor district and graduated from the Tashkent State Art Institute.
In 2011 he founded the vocal trio Mango, with peers Oybek Sangin and Azizxon Saydumarov. It is a pop project over which the three have little control (they are based at Nevo Music, the largest local label together with Riza Nova), but despite a certain diffusion in the media, the hoped-for profits do not arrive, so much so that the artist is going through a period of economic difficulty.
In 2016 Mango disbanded and the following year Sobirov attempted a solo career, initially without particular success, so much so that to support himself he decided to work as an author for the ensemble of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The collaboration ends in 2019, when his popularity finally begins to expand: since then it has been a continuous crescendo, which leads him in 2021 to become the most popular singer of the moment and in February 2022 to release "Tentakcham", a hugely successful single which established itself throughout Central Asia, in the area of the Turkic languages, becoming the most listened to song in Uzbek on YouTube (to date it has over 137 million visits; only recently it was surpassed by another song by Sobirov himself, " Janze").
His fourth studio work was finally released on April 17, 2023 (preceded by an EP and two albums): it contains the single mentioned above, plus others published periodically in the last couple of years.
Sobirov himself composes nine out of thirteen songs (the remaining four are signed by his young colleagues), while the arrangements are almost entirely handled by Doniyor Akhmedov, house producer and member of the Dndm project, which also boasts a cult following in Europe, at least among club music fans.
Juan Carlos Jiménez Rufino, popularly known as La Mona Jiménez, is an Argentine quartet reference. He was born on January 11, 1951 in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. He is one of those people for whom a presentation falls short. One of those national figures who just by seeing him you know who he is, just by listening to him your body begins to move and a smile appears. Jiménez, as they call him in his native land, La Mona as he became known throughout the country or simply a “Neighborhood Boy”, in his own words. Juan Carlos Jiménez Rufino began to relate to art at a very young age. Grandson of a grandmother from Catamarca, son of a father from Tucumán and a mother from Salta, the different influences of our Argentina would begin to be sown in him to, in the near future, bear fruit. Folklore, Tango and, later in time, Rock, were breathed in his home. He was always sung and danced, in equal parts, realizing the integral artist who was approaching. So much so that at the age of 10 he was part of a folkloric ballet, becoming a second malambo dancer.
A young Carlitos Jiménez live for a presentation by the Berna Quartet.
Time did not take long to show the multiple capabilities that Carlitos had. At just 15 years old he debuted as a singer in “Berna y su Conjunto Juvenil” with the song “Diez Monedas”. This first step in professionalism ended years later, amid the differences that existed with training. Among other things, they didn't let him dance and, true to his style, that connection with the band ended. This is how he arrives at the legendary “Golden Quartet”, a group in which he was for twelve years. In his desire to continue growing, his long-awaited debut as a soloist finally arrived in 1984. A more mature Jiménez not only began to write a new page for the history of the quartet, but he was going to rewrite it forever.
With the legendary Charly Garcia.
With more than fifty-five years of singing as a quartet, he has almost a hundred albums in his work, more than 1,200 songs, 29 gold records, 8 platinum records, 2 double platinum records, and more than twenty-seven years of playing live from Tuesday to Sunday, around 10,000 live shows. That is Jiménez, a tireless and immense artist because of his work and dedication, but also because of his bond with the people. In the words of the renowned Afro-Peruvian percussionist Bam Bam Miranda (RIP) “He has no audience, he has accomplices . ” That complicity with the people was built through Jiménez's gestures, which have been innumerable over the years, from the material to the intangible. Recognized are the raffles on his birthday where he gave his followers motorcycles, cars, apartments, cash, a house and even taxis, yes, thinking of generating a source of work.
With the legendary Luis Alberto Spinetta.
But there are also those gestures that fill the heart with recognition, and La Mona came to invent her own sign language to greet each person who comes to accompany her. Just by seeing the sign made to him from the audience, Jiménez repeats the gesture and names each neighborhood, city or province.
That commitment is what generates a unique bond, a sincere back and forth between artist and audience, because they are equal, Jímenez is part of the people, of those marginalized, exploited, discriminated majorities. He is a black artist who knows where he comes from, that he owes it to his people and is consistent with the importance of proudly expressing that identity.
In the words of his son Carli Jiménez “Although the tarantella and the double step are the origins of the quartet, musically, in the way of interpreting it, living it and dancing it, European colonialism is not present (...) It is obvious , the color of the skin, the curl of the hair, the wide noses. Look at my old man. In the way of dancing it, how the legs move, the body, it is more of an African dance than dancing a tarantella or a double step.”
If we do a brief review of some songs we can see how he made it clear on multiple occasions: “ Oh, God, I ask you / Don't forget / About my race, black race / Don't forget / Fire in the blood / strength in the soul, hunger for freedom / murmur of a black song / that springs from the skin” (Raza Negra, 1994). Or later in time with songs like El negro no es un cabrón : “El negro was a slave, in the century that is leaving / the black was a slave, in the millennium that is leaving / and now he feels free, very truly free and sings with joy, for so much happiness” (Bien Ah!, 1999). These lyrics are some of the many where Jiménez positions himself against different themes that oppress the majority, such as in Por portación de cara (Trilogy 2nd act of 2006), Gatillo Fácil “on one side they shoot and then ask for documents” (I live again…I sing again!, 2008).
A phenomenon that transcends generations and continues to add chapters to its history. For example, the Bum Bum Festival , organized for the first time in 2022, builds bridges and brings together established and emerging artists from different musical genres each year. In its third edition, held in Jesús María, the first official registration of Jimenero tattoos took place, and people carry them on their skin in addition to carrying them in their hearts. Happy birthday Jímenez, for many more. From heart to heart".
