Blick Bassy

Blick Bassy is a Bassa singer-songwriter from Cameroon. Bassy writes his songs in his native language, Bassa. His song "Kiki", from Akö, featured as the theme song for the worldwide launch of the iPhone 6 in 2015.

Early life Bassy was born in Mintaba, Cameroon, one of 21 offspring from his father, a police chief.

He began singing at the age of three, waking up at 5am every day to rehearse with the other children of the village.

Akö In 2015, Bassy released the album Akö, from which 15 seconds of "Kiki" were used in Apple's global advertising campaign for the iPhone 6. Robin Denselow, writing in The Guardian, says of Bassa: "...his new album echoes the delicacy of bossa nova along with reminders of his other influences, from African styles to the Mississippi blues of his hero Skip James. This is an easy-going but experimental set in which he plays guitar and banjo, sings in the Cameroonian language of Bassa, and is backed by the unlikely combination of cello and trombone. He starts by showing off his distinctive voice on a cool, drifting late-night ballad, but then changes direction as he swings into a breezy song that sounds like an African answer to a country-blues hoe-down, before mixing Congolese influences with impressive, bluesy guitar work. A charming, intriguing set." David Honigmann in the Financial Times describes the album's genre as manouche jazz, and describes "lubricious trombone slides" on "Kiki" and the "relentless Gypsy vamping" of "Wap Do Wap".

Bassy has toured globally, performing at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in the Africa Utopia festival in 2015, He played the Vancouver Folk Music Festival in July 2018.

Bassy's lyrics are in Bassa, one of 260 Cameroonian languages. The album presents as a comprehensive report of events during the 70 years since the death of Um Nyobè. The track "Mpodol" is Ruben's nickname and accuses modern Cameroonians of sabotaging their own homeland.