Paris is cold in autumn time, and yet Wanlov the Kubolor hasn’t changed his Ghanaian habits: he was waiting in front of the Cité des Arts, barefoot on the tarmac, wearing only a wrap skirt. The legend goes that he wears nothing underneath, Scotsman style.

Born in Romania to a Romanian mother and a Ghanaian father, Emmanuel Owusu-Bonsu moved to Ghana at a young age and grew up in Africa. Wanlov enjoys playing on his unusual mixed race: he sings in Twi, Romani and English, against electro reggae beats and hiplife. He is in Paris to record a third album that will present a more personal musical rendition of his double nationality.

Accordion sounds

In his room at the Cité des Arts, Wanlov plays around with sounds on his computer. He is putting the finishing touches to an accordion solo and making it into a beat before mixing it with Ahsanti, Gan and Fra-fra rhythms. “I recorded most of the African rhythms in Ghana. I asked my mates to play different rhythms from all over the country, and then I mixed them with Romani sounds, like this one, which I recorded in the Metro.”

Since Wanlov arrived in Paris, he’s been pumping his contacts and, thanks to DJ Click, has met Taraf de Haïdouks and improvised with Romani musicians in the Metro. In mid-October, he went to Budapest where he gave several concerts and recorded with a new bunch of musicians. “I’m not a Romani, but let’s just say that where I live my neighbours and friends play this music, and the folk music of Romania is Romani music.”

At home, his mother used to hum Romani lullabies to him, and his father played the best of soul and American funk on his pick-up. As a teenager, Emmanuel used to swap cassettes of hip-hop music and traditional drums. “You see, I’m just the product of my environment!” he says with irony.

On his previous albums, Green Card and Yellow Card, Wanlov the Kubolor focused on sampling highlife horn sounds. Here, he blends them with Romani brass band fanfares. “With Brown Card, I want to make an album that tells the story of a Romani African. I also want to show the similarities between instruments: for example, the bamboo flute is an ancestor of the clarinet.”  

Part-tradition, part-urban life, Wanlov’s sound is like nothing else. It springs from the school of Panji Anoof, an urban producer from Accra, who helped bring about hiplife – a contemporary, sampled version of fifties highlife.

His label, Pigden Music, groups a variety of artists who reinvent Ghanaian urban music in their own style. It was with Panji Anoff that Wanlov the Kubolor filmed Coz ov Moni, a Pidgen musical in rhyme and song about life in 21st century Accra, including rap dialogues and an original soundtrack that reflects urban Africa.

Kubolor, the bare-foot vagabond, gives a caustic view of Ghanaian society. “I called my first album Green Card, because I lived in the States for seven years and everyone there has some tip about how to get hold of the famous bit of paper. So when I got back, I recorded the Green Card album about emigration issues.”

One of his biggest hits in Ghana, Kokonsa, makes a jibe at the malicious gossip that spreads like wildfire in Accra… Yellow card came out during the World Cup and made the football event its central theme. The third album in the trilogy, Brown, like the colour of his mixed race skin, will centre on his present concerns – the simultaneous expulsion of Roms and Africans from France. “Current events in France involve both of my nationalities!”

For now, he’s still in the first phase of the album, which includes creating an original sound that gives equal space to his roots. So far he has produced some convincing samples and an astonishing sense of rhythm. Next summer, he hopes to be able to put together a live performance of a Romani band and a traditional Ghanaian group. Linking the two will be some vagabond lyrics and an amused vision of what he sees around him.