Born on October 12, 1956 in Lomé, the capital of Togo, the artist-musician Jimi Hope, also a painter and sculptor, left us on August 5, 2019 in Paris. The one who was called "the greatest African rocker" or "doctor of the blues", made Africa vibrate with songs in Ewe, French and English...
His name was Koffi Sènaya in the civil status and he handled the guitar and the harmonica with dexterity. The one everyone called Jimi Hope, by his artist name, left us on the night of August 4 to 5, 2019.
Hospitalized for some time, Jimi Hope was considered the best African rocker and the most complete Togolese artist of his generation. An unclassifiable artist, who marked the continent with his hoarse voice and his magical skill as an outstanding guitarist! In particular with titles like “Agbébavi”, “We must forget”, “Try me now”, “Fikè olé”, or even the very emblematic “Aglan”.
Ah, “Aglan”! A musical track that offers the exquisite metaphor of a crab who dreamed, at night, of having built a two-storey house. And what was his surprise, to this dreamy crab, when he simply finds himself, when he wakes up in the morning, at the top of this cassava flour dough that the inhabitants of southern Togo, among others, particularly like!
He is like that, Jimi Hope, caustic humor, the right verb, supported by a guitar that cries good for the blues. Because the blues is his business! "I was born with the blues in my blood, it's music from Togo", confides this fan of Jimi Hendrix, who has gone so far as to adopt the initials of his idol (JH), to create his profile of crooner of the music scene.
And even if his sometimes anecdotal messages earned him a formal embargo on television and radio broadcasting in his country, Jimi Hope remained straight in his boots. “I was born blues, I will die blues” (I was born blues, I will die blues), he sings. Because for him, the blues, “it is the perfect vehicle to exteriorize his sorrows and his daily joys”.
Bluesman therefore until his death, on the night of August 4 to 5, 2019, but also rocker, painter and sculptor, Koffi Sènaya, this monument of Togolese music, will no longer disturb the sleep of politicians. His works, immortal, remain however as many testimonies of his messages of hope, and of his great sensitivity.
A sensitive artist of course, who has not recovered from the death of his son, Cédric Preston, who died in 2016 in Lille, in a traffic accident. But a rebellious artist, who did not intend to pass into anonymity, once the hour of farewell had sounded. "I want to leave traces after my death," he said. Future generations should know that a man named Jimi Hope existed and did this and that."
Here we are! Jimi Hope has really done this and that, through at least fifteen discographic works, now bequeathed to posterity. Hi artist!
© Serge Mathias Tomondji
Ouagadougou, August 6, 2019
