Hong Kong is Talking About ... Ballroom Dancing

Francis Bebey- The Legend

Poet, filmmaker, play-writer, novelist, musician Francis Bebey was born in Cameroon in the year of 1929. Born into a family that followed the Protestant faith, Francis’s parents alienated him from the real roots of African culture and everything that surrounded him. His parents detested the traditional African style music and therefore never surrounded or indulged Francis with it. As a young man Francis exposed himself to the African culture and all that it had to offer him, which intern led him to his love for the African culture especially, the music. Francis started playing drums and guitar in a Cameroonian high life band, which only led him challenge himself artistically with his music even more. During the mid 50’s Francis went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne where he discovered a new passion, the classical guitar. Before even graduating Francis embarked on yet another passion of his, writing, where he took a job as a producer and journalist for Paris’s Radiodiffusion- Outré-Me. Within this time Francis was also leading a jazz band in the city which as an artist gave him a distinction of who he was becoming, a well rounded musician. In 1958, Francis came to United States to continue his studies at New York University. NYU is where Francis really started to compose his own music but that didn’t mean he put his other passion, journalism on the back burner. After Francis was done with school at NYU he went back to Paris where he hosted his own radio show and after that his career just started booming. He wrote three different books, played three different instruments and became on of Africa’s more popular singer and songwriter. Francis was voted international pioneer of the world of music. Francis Bebey has conquered and succeeded so much in his one lifetime then many people don’t even come close to succeeding in their own lives and for that, that is something to be talked about, knowledge about, and praised.