Arrested Development
Zingalamaduni

DISCLAIMER, I talk very little about the work and a looot about my own stuff as always!

You hate outdoor discos, you love the underground, but you're at Byblos, Plugo is back... at 4am you've taken everything, drunk everything, at the bar counter HE arrives, your best friend's BIG brother, 33 years old, you're ten years younger... He wants to take you home, he followed you there! He did some research, for him you're a CBCR!

HE is an "old glory", he WANTS you, he DEMANDS you... but who does he think he is??

You run away, you're a curious urchin but you flee with your vodka lemon in hand (the fourth???) "Run away" destiny tells you!!! That escape will change your entire life. You even resist a "You're so beautiful you seem suspended, I've always liked you"... despite the miniskirt and heels, you're a scared little hare!!!

He follows you on the dance floor, he's more out of it than you "Go away, go away, I'm engaged (not true)... leave me alone, let me be!!!" By six in the morning, you've already regretted it, but you'll see him again, right? He's your best friend’s brother.

Scene change, the setting is always the city where you live, every time you see him, every time you see him again, you like him more and more, but he's shy when he's sober, he comes to the bar where you work but doesn't ask you out, he talks to you about Mali, the thesis he wrote about the Tuareg, he's special, distant, nomadic, beautiful and from then on you'll love only him for the rest of your life and vice versa.

At the umpteenth party, you see him, you grab him by the sweater and pull him towards you, you recklessly say to him "So, do you want to go out with me or not?" now it's his turn to run away... he comes back, tells you "you moved me, give me your number" ...

The call is punctual, the next day.

Hello, it's better that we don't go out together, I'm leaving for Africa for a year and a half as a volunteer... and now? You're in love, damn it! You have to face life, you have to give in and accept it. Love evolves instantly, in an evening, you're lost. Everything floats, the air is fluid, with each beer it rises and hurts, he's not just handsome, he's funny, cultured, intelligent but most of all he adores everything about you.

October 1994 he's obviously become your boyfriend and you're in Dakar alone, in a hotel, you have a flight to join him the next day in the south, by the sea. Damn you love him, you haven't seen him for four months but damn you love him! You miss him like the air, his smell is THE drug!

You get on the red pick-up and HE HE HE plays exactly this damn epic album, the hot wind surrounds you, it's 50 degrees, you haven't slept for two days. You've also smoked semi-incomprehensible things, Africa is beautiful, colors, colors, people with baskets on their heads! You don't understand anything anymore.

He tells you, "Hello my love I have to play you a tape" HE HAS THE RADIOLINE in the PICK UP the album is just this...ZINGALAMDUNI!!! It's Arrested Development!

As I write, I get chills, I will always be there, my whole life, in that moment and here I am in the present.

Listening to it again, the modernity enclosed in this gem from the nineties impresses me, how advanced were these ARRESTED DEVELOPMENTS as we called them???

GERMINAL the album, PHOTONIC INTRO, SLANG, AND RAP, HIP HOP AND POWER TO THE PEOPLE everything mixes magically to create a perfect atmosphere along with Guru Jazzmatazz and Remain in Light by Talking Heads (don't ask me why) it will be the soundtrack of adventures up and down Africa.

W W W THE BLACKS

To be continued......