“Allé Baba” was my favourite, my protest song , my rebel song - It was in the early years of independence , a class was in session, in one of those high-ranking schools attended mainly by the elite , everyone was concentrating on his work , it was pin silence and I would then drop in my bomb - “Allé Baba, a nou danser” and the whole class will burst out into laughter and …I do not have to tell u what happened next…….
Yes, the segas of Serge Lebrasse, the songs of Elvis the pelvis and the Beatles (and their hair style)….were one of our avenues of teenage rebellion, our ways of developing an identity independent of the then neo-colonial society that still reflected the thinking of an earlier era - on language, culture and especially the sega which was considered “grossier”.
We moved on , some caught up by the system -the elitist education- too bourgeois , too respectable to adopt the sega, others to more politically charged , activist versions à la Bam Cuttayen, Grup Latanier,…
....but nothing could stop Serge , the author, composer of such songs as Madame Eugène, Moris mo pei or Mo enn ti creole, … He gained respectability and popularity as more and more people could not stop humming his tunes, ti-bourgeois or not…
....but more than that he was inventive, non-linear, social, contextual and quite spirited and sometimes witty and his segas gave our local rooted identities context and meaning.
Thank You , Serge , for having shown us the true free spirit of Mauritianism and for the devotion with which you sang for your only true love, the muse for whom you spent out your whole life -Moris nou pei.
