Lapiro de Mbanga

Who are they?

A singer and guitarist born in 1957 in Mbanga, in the Moungo area, as Lambo Sandjo Pierre Roger; “Lapiro” is formed from LAmbo, PIerre and ROger. He released his first album in 1978 and was nicknamed “Ndinga Man”, the guitar man.

What made them famous

Popular since “Pas argent no love” (1985), he became the spokesman for urban youth and the dispossessed, and was regularly censored for his lyrics on the country’s social realities. In 2008 his song “Constitution constipée”, against the constitutional amendment lifting presidential term limits, was banned from the airwaves but taken up by protesters.

Key facts

• Arrested in April 2008 after the February riots, he was sentenced to three years and held in New Bell prison in Douala until April 2011.
• The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found his detention to be arbitrary.
• He was granted political asylum in the United States in 2012.
• He died of cancer in Buffalo, New York, in March 2014.