A night out in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital, is not complete until you find yourself in a line of Ivorians, all standing side by side facing the giant mirrors that line every dance floor in the city, dancing to a DJ Arafat song.
The untimely death earlier this week of the man dubbed the King of Coupé Décalé left fans stunned as they come to terms with the loss of a charismatic, ground-breaking artist who brought Ivorian dance music to the global stage.
The 33-year old, born Ange Didier Huon, burst onto the musical scene as a DJ in Yopougon, one of Abidjan’s best known nightlife districts. He came from a musical family—his mother was a well-known singer and his father a prominent sound engineer. One of his first hits, Hômmage a Jonathan, was a tribute a friend he lost to a motorcycle accident. This is why, among many reasons, it was particularly tragic Arafat also lost his life a few hours after his own motorcycle collided with a car on Aug. 12.
The Coupé Décalé sound and movement started in Paris nightclubs in the early 2000s where it was brought by Ivorian DJs. In Nouchi (Ivorian slang), Coupé Décalé means “to cheat” and “run away” or cut and run. The fun, bass-heavy sound embraced the joie de vivre that typifies Abidjan, a city known for its legendary partying. It also celebrated young resilient Africans who having endured the difficulties of being migrants in Europe, eventually made it big—sometimes by unorthodox means. Hence the concept of cheating the system and getting away with it. It’s an aspirational genre that emerged at the time of the first Ivorian civil war (2002-2007) when dispirited youth needed to believe in the possibility of a better life sometimes in the form of finding fame and fortune abroad.