The event at Cabaret Sauvage was Koffi’s first concert in Paris during the long Affaire d’État Tour (September 2002 – April 2003). It took place on November 9th, one week after winning 4 Kora’s in South Africa.

It was the first time that Koffi did not start his European tour in Paris.
The reason was that the tour was originally supposed to begin in mid-August with a triple event at the Olympia in Paris. However, due to logistical issues faced by the concert promoter, the event was once again cancelled. Since Koffi had already signed other tour dates, the tour eventually started in Geneva in September 2002, followed by a concert in London two weeks later, as the event in Brussels got canceled because of New Jack gangsters who were in conflict against him.

I don’t know why, but something always felt a bit off about the dancers’ team during the Affaire d’État era. Apart from Patience and Kaddy Show, many of the dancers at that time were relatively unknown and most of them didn’t even take part in the following European tour.If Bibicia hadn’t later become known in Maison Mère, I probably wouldn’t have recognized her either, just like Bijoux Anapata. It’s only because of TikTok that I recently started to realize who Bijoux Anapata actually was. I didn’t even know Bennie back then. I only started noticing her in the Monde Arabe clips and concerts because of her eyes and her piercings. I still can’t believe that she was only 14 years old at the time.

 I even believe that many people didn’t realize that it was the same Kaddy Show from Academia when they watched the concerts from that tour. I remember that Sam Tshintu was seriously upset when Koffi recruited her and later also Laura Mombili. He said that Koffi was trying to destabilize Academia. Someone really needs to do something similar to what Mr La Rumba is doing, but focused on the dancers. I would love to know how Kaddy Show actually joined Quartier Latin.

I wonder what happened before the tour, because Koffi left behind several familiar faces, (except Patience), like Chouchou, Midi Kompressor, Miss Coulibaly and the girl who was at Bercy (I forgot her name). Was it because Koffi being afraid that they might run away after he had promised them cars during the previous tour ( since all three of them stayed while eight dancers went to Europe), but then never sent the cars to Kinshasa? Was he worried that the dancers who had been with the group since the Attentat era, to run away like Korando did? Was it out of anger because Sandralina had left Quartier Latin for Wenge BCBG? Or was it because Chouchou started to claim her rights and Koffi not wanting her to have a bad influence on other dancers ?