Biography
Les Tetes Brulees, a designation that literally denotes the hot heads or the burnt heads yet more sharply evokes the mind-blown, draw immediate notice wherever they appear. Five members form the group, clad in precisely ripped t-shirts, elaborate dots-and-bars body paint covering most of their skin, retro mirror shades, Afro mohawks, oversized sneakers, and signature day-glo book bags that accompany every high-voltage performance. Jean-Marie Ahanda, a former journalist who moved into music, conceived the band, which managed to astonish listeners even in a Cameroon long resistant to surprise. International visibility soon matched their domestic profile once members featured in two documentaries: Man No Run, which documented the group’s first tour of France, and Bikutsi Water Blues, in which guitarist Zanzibar addressed the politics of water in Cameroon. Zanzibar’s death in 1989 invited unwelcome speculation about murder and sorcery that persisted for some time, yet the band regrouped, enlisted a keyboard player, and resumed both recording and touring. Stripped of the visual spectacle and surrounding rumors, their output stays rooted in high-energy bikutsu and riff-driven spontaneity. What continues to mark them out is the early drive to transplant a punk attitude into a deeply rooted traditional form.
Albums
