Ambasse bey

Music of Cameroon
Bamileke drummers
Genres
Makossa Bikutsi Mvet Assiko Nganja Bend-skin New rumba Bantowbol Ambasse bey Bend-skin
Specific forms
Tsamassi Mangambeu
Regional music
Music of Africa

Ambasse bey or ambas-i-bay is a style of folk music and dance from Cameroon. The music is based on commonly available instruments, especially guitar, with percussion provided by sticks and bottles. The music is faster-paced than assiko, an older form of Cameroonian popular folk music.

Ambasse bey originated among the Yabassi ethnic group and grew popular in Douala after World War II. Through the 1950s and 1960s, the style evolved in the Cameroonian Littoral. In the mid-1960s, Eboa Lotin performed a style of ambasse bey on harmonica and guitar that was the earliest form of makossa, a style that quickly came to overshadow its predecessor and become Cameroon's most popular form of indigenous music. Ambasse bey was revived to an extent by Cameroonian singer Sallé John.

References

• Chrispin, Pettang, directeur, Cameroun: Guide touristique. Paris: Les Éditions Wala.
• DeLancey, Mark W., and Mark Dike DeLancey (2000): Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon (3rd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press.
• Hudgens, Jim, and Richard Trillo (1999). West Africa: The Rough Guide. 3rd ed. London: Rough Guides Ltd.
• Mbaku, John Mukum (2005). Culture and Customs of Cameroon. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.