Biography
Charlotte Dipanda crafts elegant, frequently acoustic material that fuses melodic Afro-pop with vocal jazz and singer/songwriter conventions. Portions of her catalog appear in French or Douala, as well as her native Bakaka, a regional Cameroonian tongue. Following multiple years spent as a backing vocalist and featured performer, she issued her first solo album, Mispa, in 2009. Her major-label entrance arrived with the fourth long-player, 2018’s Un Jour dans Ma Vie on Universal.
Born in Yaoundé and raised across Yaoundé, Douala, and Mbouda by relatives, Dipanda embraced music in her early teens as an escape from studies. Open-mike appearances at a Yaoundé club led to an encounter with singer Lokua Kanza, resulting in her contribution to guitarist Jeannot Hens’ album Ndando while still in her mid-teens. After moving to France she reconnected with Kanza, who assisted in securing backing-vocalist engagements there.
An acoustic session with Guy Nsangue produced her solo debut, Mispa, released in 2009 on Cano Productions/Rue Stendhal and containing a tribute to Hens. She returned in 2012 with Dube I Am, recorded alongside zouk icon Jacob Desvarieux and bassist Richard Bona of the Pat Metheny Group. Her third album, Massa, appeared on the Pharempire label in 2015. One year later Dipanda joined the judging panel of the television singing contest The Voice Afrique Francophone for the first time.
After signing with Universal, the label issued her fourth studio album, 2018’s Un Jour dans Ma Vie, and later reissued her earlier catalog. That year also brought the release of “Sista,” a collaboration with pop singer/rapper Yemi Alade. At December’s Balafon Music Awards she received the Female Voice of the Year prize. Still based in Paris, she returned in 2020 with “Quand Tu N’es Pas Là.”
Born in Yaoundé and raised across Yaoundé, Douala, and Mbouda by relatives, Dipanda embraced music in her early teens as an escape from studies. Open-mike appearances at a Yaoundé club led to an encounter with singer Lokua Kanza, resulting in her contribution to guitarist Jeannot Hens’ album Ndando while still in her mid-teens. After moving to France she reconnected with Kanza, who assisted in securing backing-vocalist engagements there.
An acoustic session with Guy Nsangue produced her solo debut, Mispa, released in 2009 on Cano Productions/Rue Stendhal and containing a tribute to Hens. She returned in 2012 with Dube I Am, recorded alongside zouk icon Jacob Desvarieux and bassist Richard Bona of the Pat Metheny Group. Her third album, Massa, appeared on the Pharempire label in 2015. One year later Dipanda joined the judging panel of the television singing contest The Voice Afrique Francophone for the first time.
After signing with Universal, the label issued her fourth studio album, 2018’s Un Jour dans Ma Vie, and later reissued her earlier catalog. That year also brought the release of “Sista,” a collaboration with pop singer/rapper Yemi Alade. At December’s Balafon Music Awards she received the Female Voice of the Year prize. Still based in Paris, she returned in 2020 with “Quand Tu N’es Pas Là.”
Albums
Singles
