Bella Bellow (born Georgette Nafiatou Adjoavi Bellow; 1 January 194510 December 1973), was a Togolese singer-songwriter. Born in Tsévié, she died in a road accident in Lilikopé, a village between Tsévié and , at the age of 28.
From childhood, her talent for music and her voice were noticed at home and at school, where she performed at festivities. Her musical career began at the French Cultural Centre in Lomé before she was invited to perform at the Dahomey independence celebrations in 1965. The following year, her participation in the first World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, representing Togo, brought her to international attention.
In 1968, her former teacher Paul Ahyi introduced her to Togolese singer Gérard Akueson, who became her producer. He put her in contact with Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango, with whom she built her repertoire and recorded her first and only album, Rockia, released in 1969. Dibango also accompanied her in her early stage appearances and during the promotion of her album in France.
She performed on international stages, including the Olympia in Paris and the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Always dressed in wax print fabric, she sang mainly in her mother tongue, Mina (or Gen). With her husky voice, she helped spread Togolese and African music in the early 1970s. Returning to Togo in December 1973, she died the day after her arrival in a road accident at the age of 28. Although her career was brief, she influenced many artists, including Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo, who has covered Bella Bellow's songs such as Zelie and Blewu, performing the latter at the centenary of the 1918 Armistice. After her death, the BCEAO honoured her by printing her image on the 10,000 CFA franc banknote. She also appears on several Togolese stamps, and the anniversary of her death is commemorated each year in the country.
Biography
Childhood and education Georgette Nafiatou Adjoavi Bellow was born on 1 January 1945 in Tsévié, a town located north of Lomé, to a Togolese father of Nigerian descent and a mother of Ghanaian origins. Nicknamed toutouvi, she was the eldest of seven siblings. She took on significant household and caregiving responsibilities within her large family. In a family household of around thirty children, she directed all domestic and academic activities, demanding of others — including older brothers — expectations she held for her siblings. In the evenings, after chores, she would sing little tunes or tell stories, revealing another side of herself to her siblings.
When she began composing little songs for school festivities, her mother sewed her stage costumes with their help. On Saturdays, with no school, she did the laundry at the stream with her siblings and sang with them the songs her mother had taught her in Ewe and Kotokoli. She sang tunes from different parts of the country, learning most of the languages of Togo through song. A school orchestra was created for her, with which she gave a concert at the end of the 1963 school year before a large crowd.
Bella Bellow spent part of her childhood in Agoè-Nyivé, one of the 13 municipalities of Grand Lomé, and began her schooling in 1950 with the Sisters of the Catholic School Notre-Dame des Apôtres in Lomé. She obtained her primary school certificate (CEPE) in 1958. She enrolled for secondary school at the lycée in Sokodé and then at the Lycée Bonnecarrère in Lomé, completing her junior secondary certificate (BEPC) in 1966. From 1966 to 1968, she undertook secretarial training in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where she also took solfège classes at the Institut des Arts.
Career
Early career
In 1962, an artistic contest was organised between Bella Bellow and at the French Cultural Centre (CCF) in Lomé.
For the national independence celebrations in August 1965, Bella Bellow was invited to Cotonou by the president of the Republic of Dahomey, Hubert Maga, to sing before an audience that included German president Ludwig Erhard, United Nations Secretary-General U Thant, and Ivorian president Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who offered her a scholarship to come to Abidjan at the end of her performance.
In 1966, a duo concert with her brother Désiré was organised at the French Cultural Centre in Lomé, during which she performed the song Mawudeka ye lanya ("God alone will know it"). That year, at the age of 21, she was exempted from the oral examination of the BEPC in order to represent Togo at the first World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal, accompanied by her compatriot Julie Akofa Akoussah. Among those present at the festival were Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes, and Duke Ellington. She gained considerable recognition following the event.
While studying secretarial skills in Abidjan, she attracted the attention of Ivorian media through an appearance on a television show on the Radio-Télévision Ivoirienne. She also took part in a concert at the CCF in Lomé alongside Julien Clerc. In 1967, she performed at a gala organised by the Office du Tourisme Africain in Geneva, Switzerland.
Meeting Gérard Akueson Gérard Akueson, a Togolese singer and the first African phonographic publisher in France, went on a musical tour of West Africa, which brought him to Togo in 1968. The country had few artist managers at the time, and Paul Ahyi, Bella Bellow's former drawing teacher at the lycée in Sokodé, who knew Akueson's Akue record label, asked him to meet her. She sang Zelie for Akueson, who stopped her after barely a minute and told Paul Ahyi that he had found a remarkable singer. Akueson praised her vocal qualities and subsequently signed a contract with her in Paris. At the end of his musical tour, and back in Paris, Akueson signed a contract with Bellow, who joined him in the French capital at the end of her studies in 1968. Akueson looked for a first name that would work better as a stage name internationally than her birth name "Georgette" and suggested "Bella", which she accepted.
Collaboration with Manu Dibango
shortly afterwards asked Manu Dibango to record with Bella Bellow.
A secretarial job was arranged for her in Paris. During this period she spent a great deal of time with Dibango at his home, working on her songs with him at the piano, trying out different approaches — more of an exchange than a lesson, according to him — so that the final result would sound natural rather than rehearsed. Manu Dibango, in the documentary L'éternelle Bella Bellow, stated: "I took care of her musically [...]. She was like my daughter. My wife and I had adopted her."
Album Accompanied by Manu Dibango on keyboards, Slim Pezin on guitar, and Jeanot Mandengue on bass — musicians assembled by Akueson — Bella Bellow recorded her first and only album, Rockia, arranged by Manu Dibango. It was the first pop album in Ewe. The first song recorded for the album, "Zelie", was well-received upon release, as was the title track Rockia. These were followed by tracks such as Blewu, which addresses the themes of patience and life after death, and Denyigban, an ode to her homeland, Togo. The lyrics of her songs draw on traditional folk tales and biblical texts, and also explore psychological themes.
Manu Dibango noted that the album was not purely African but also contained American influences, the result being one that showcased her voice and set her apart. She sang in Mina, and her music was influenced by blues, gospel, and bossa nova.
On the back cover of the first single from the album, Gérard Akueson wrote:
International career In 1969, Bella Bellow released her first and only album on the Akue label, arranged by Manu Dibango. As conductor for Nino Ferrer, he had her perform on the television programmes Pulsations (of which he was the musical director) and Discorama hosted by Denise Glaser. He also organised concerts throughout France to raise her profile. She was among the very few artists from Francophone Africa to be broadcast on French radio at the time. They toured clubs and festivals together for two years.
In 1969, she took part in the "Night of Brotherhood" organised in tribute to Martin Luther King, held at the Olympia.
At the in Algiers in 1969, Bella Bellow met her idol Miriam Makeba, who congratulated her warmly. That same year, she signed her first major contract to perform at the fourth popular song festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, appearing alongside Rika Zaraï, Johnny Hallyday, Nana Mouskouri, and Herbert Léonard, among others, at the Maracanã stadium, which held 120,000 spectators. The Brazilian audience was known to be unforgiving towards artists it did not appreciate, and Bellow was required to perform with fifty musicians, whereas she usually performed with four or five. Akueson therefore suggested that she begin singing from backstage when her name was announced before walking onto the stage. In agreement with the sound engineer, the orchestra did not play until she stepped onto the stage. She performed Zelie before a very silent audience until the end of the set. All the journalists flocked backstage to see her afterwards; Pelé came backstage to congratulate her and came to see her again at a reception the following day. At the Maracanãzinho (Little Maracanã), with a capacity of over 10,000, she performed Bem-bem, which appeared on one of the other singles in her discography.
In 1970, she took part in the musical gala organised at the OCAM Summit in Kinshasa. That same year, she became the first Togolese artist to perform at the Olympia in Paris.
She subsequently performed in Yugoslavia, Belgium, Greece, and toured major African cities, principally in French-speaking countries such as Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Mali, Gabon, and Congo. She also performed in Guadeloupe and French Guiana, where she earned the nickname "blueswoman of Africa".
In 1971, she ended her collaboration with Gérard Akueson and took control of her own career. On 20 January 1972, in Atakpamé, she married Togolese magistrate Théophile Jamier-Lévy, and gave birth to their only daughter, Nadia Elsa. After a pause in her career, she returned with Dasi Ko, a song with a different artistic direction from Dibango that diverged from his usual style, and which was her last recorded song.
In November 1972, a Franco-Togolese evening was organised at the French Cultural Centre in Lomé. She presented her own orchestra, named Gabada — after a traditional Togolese rhythm — and performed several songs: Miwonovi lagbeme, Azikiri, Miangoma Bombe, among others. She undertook a musical tour in Bonn, Germany, in 1973.
On stage, she held only her flywhisk and always dressed in wax print fabric, with a matching turban.
Death Bella Bellow returned to Togo at her husband's request to spend Christmas with her family in Atakpamé. The day after her arrival in Togo, she died in a car accident in her Ford Capri on 10 December 1973 in Lilikopé, north of Lomé. She had been preparing to tour the United States with Manu Dibango.
The circumstances of the accident were never fully clarified. Bella Bellow had not been wearing her seatbelt. The car overturned after rolling several times, and she was thrown from the vehicle, her head striking the asphalt. She died almost immediately from a cerebral haemorrhage. Years after the accident, Francis Bellow, Bella Bellow's brother, stated that the driver of her car had apologised to him: "I'm sorry, I fell asleep."
Bella Bellow was buried on 13 December 1973 at the Catholic cemetery of Bè-Plage in Lomé.
According to her producer Akueson, she died before African music became widely popular beyond folklore, particularly with the international success of Soul Makossa by Manu Dibango.
Influence and tributes
Influence Bella Bellow influenced many artists across the African continent, the most prominent of whom is Angélique Kidjo.
Angélique Kidjo