The former tennis player, singer and village chief in Cameroon, Yannick Noah is the exceptional guest of Le Monde d’Élodie, all this week on franceinfo. He looks back on the highlights of his careers by evoking five of his songs that have become cult. His latest album “La Marfée” was released in October 2022.
Yannick Noah sings, coaches, plays sports and is a village chief in Cameroon. It is ultimately unclassifiable, indomitable. He is the only French professional sportsman to have succeeded in building a musical career. Several generations follow and support him. The elders first see in him, Roland-Garros and his victory in 1983, then the youngest see him as a singer thanks to his albums and his concerts since 1991.
Today, Cameroon recalls Yannick Noah, as village chief This Cameroon which allowed him to discover tennis, music and which he was forced to leave, when he was 12, to pursue a sports career. We come back with this artist who likes life without constraints and who works only on instinct on his sporting victories, on his life choices which have allowed him to create an atypical, solid, constant career. His last album La Marfee was released in October 2022.
franceinfo: It was in 1978 that you started your professional career. You will win your first tournaments at this time. There is Manila, Calcutta and especially Johannesburg in the middle of the apartheid period. It’s amazing what will happen. The Whites are going to leave the stands and there is a very small space for the Blacks… You are going to decide not to let go.
Yes, it was an initiatory journey. It was Arthur Ashe who managed to get me an invitation to the tournament. I arrive with the France team and then, we are queuing at customs when we arrive. And then, all of a sudden, someone comes to pick me up because I’m in the wrong line. Me, I’m in the line of “non white”. So my friends pass in a quarter of an hour and then I take two hours to pass. I find myself at the hotel and then at the hotel, I had a private room where there was a policeman in front of my room, 24 hours a day.
“In Johannesburg, in full Apartheid, the matches started at 2:00 p.m., but I was made to play at noon to make sure that there were as few people as possible. And there was a small cage where there were the ‘non-whites’. So there were 8,000 empty places and a cage of 300 with 500 people in there!”
Yannick Noahat franceinfo
We belong to those who love us and at that time, I had 500 supporters who gave me this unconditional love for my blackness. It was the black they saw in me, at least the “non-white”. And I was like, OK, that’s important to me, but it’s also important to them that I play and be dignified on the course.
You will also lead the French Davis Cup team to the final against the United States. There, we also understand that you have this mind.
I wanted to win. I wanted to prove that a French, Cameroonian player could win. I’ve heard too much throughout my career that it’s not possible. I want to be the French number 1 and quickly! But afterwards, it wasn’t enough because, I think I was number 1, I was 19, it wasn’t enough, because I was the hope… Can you imagine being the hope? Hello, this is hope!
“I was the hope of others. I was also my own hope. I had this hope. I had this desire, this deep dream of winning at Roland-Garros and it was really my dream.”
Yannick Noahat franceinfo
It is June 5, 1983, indeed, it is the consecration. Your first gesture is to greet Mats Wilander, but above all, you are looking for your father!
My gaze was drawn to my father who was jumping. It is high ! Dad never does that, my parents are super discreet. They were great, they were never on the edge of the court to put pressure on me, piss off the referees, the coaches or anyone. I was so surprised to see dad jump and then he falls on his back and comes running. But of course, it was a very good idea.
That’s a family victory after all?
Yes, it’s still a family affair. There are those who talk about it or who don’t talk about it. There are some who don’t understand, but in the end, it’s always a family affair. We cannot reach this level without having an entourage who understands the course. When you win, you also win for them and we win a little together and that creates a very powerful emotion. And this emotion, 40 years ago, people experienced it live. It’s one of the best days of my life. I have the film and it’s fabulous to have the film of the most beautiful day of your life.
I would like you to tell me about the song Simon Papa Tara (2000). I find that it lent itself precisely to everything that has just been said.
Simon Papa Tara, it is the link with my grandfather. In Cameroon, in many African countries, we have a normal and simple relationship with the deceased because the notion of karma is experienced on a daily basis. And my grandfather always told me:You know when I’m gone I’ll still be here“Well me, I studied in France, I said: yes, okay, I love my grandfather a lot, but he’s delirious. Then one day, he leaves and my father says to me: “You know I still see my dad“Okay dad, you miss your dad, I get it! Until the day I meet my grandfather, one early morning. :”You came this morning, at the hour when the night dies. You came from so far from where death is no longer scary“and then I’m not scared at all, but it’s an incredible thing.
I tell this to a friend, Robert, who writes me this song. And it’s quite incredible to find myself singing, a few years ago, Simon Papa Tara and the refrain: “Yes, I know that you are in me” in front of 80,000 people who resume: “Simon Papa Tara“. It’s strong. It’s a very strong connection. That’s it, it’s the memory of my grandfather that I live, me, differently from the traditional side and my African beliefs. And also, from his memory altogether.
Yannick Noah will be on July 31, 2023 at the Game of Trees Festival in Les Orres and on September 10 in Comines as part of the Lys Festival.