Pole Position is a group album, while Foridoles is a solo album. Pole Position is a group album with Papa Wemba having 6 songs on his name with the rest being shared with Djuna Djanana (Perdue de Vue), Spraya Dora (Sema Spraya), Cele Le Roi (Mississipii) and Timo-lolo (Kaokokokorobo) plus a interlude (Jingle Amina) and a song dedicated to Stervos Niarcos written by longtime friend Seydou Madison.
Foridoles is seen as Papa Wemba's best album every by Viva-fanatics, musiclovers and himself. People credit Pole Position because of the hitsongs Kaokokokorobo, Apres Tout and Nani Temoin, but many can't remember Soul Gbemani, Toutou Kamuke, Sema Spraya and Mississipi. Many songs weren't also on the level of Foridoles. Foridoles was a fantastic album and it has a big story behind it. Back in those days Papa Wemba was very down. Some musicians (Luciana Demingongo, Awilo Longomba, Bongo Wende, Lidjo Kwempa, etc.) left to form "Nouvelle Generation de La Republique Democratique" and that band became number one in Paris. Reddy Amisi saved Viva La Musica by releasing his solo album Injustice, but it made people say that Papa Wemba is nothing and that he just profiting from Reddy's and Stino's succes with some people even saying that he has stop with music. On the same time Koffi Olomide started to disrepect him openly in interviews and starting to ignore his past collaborations with Viva La Musica. Being to focused on his worldmusiccaareer people in the Congolese community started to say that he was abandoning. So because of this all he had to prove them a point and Foridoles was a hard reponse to all those critics and it put Papa Wemba on the map. All songs of the album were fantastic. You had excellent rumba's like La Reference (ft Sam Mangwana, Winamol, Latin Lovers, and Nzete Ya Sequoia. Typical Viva La Musica-songs like Moyi, Foridoles (warning against Koffi, who would react with Andrada) and Bravo Cathy. Those rumba-rock songs Oldies Are Goodies and Dixieme Commandement. With also the beautiful duet Papa Wemba made with Asta Paola on Aladji Djambo. Pole Position had good songs, but it isn't on Foridoles-level. With Pole Position, Papa Wemba maintained his position and slowly started his project to dump Reddy, Stino, Demukuse and co. and thinking how to fight Koffi Olomide and Wenge 4x4 better who stole his market.
We have to thank Maika Munan for his excellent job on both albums and also the Nouvelle Ecriture-album.
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