Female Teacher Hunting (1982)

"For you will find, as women have found through the ages, that changing the world requires a lot of free time. Requires a lot of mobility. Requires money, and, as Virginia Woolf put it so well, 'a room of one's own,' preferably one with a key and a lock. Which means that women must be prepared to think for themselves, which means, undoubtedly, trouble with boyfriends, lovers, and husbands, which means all kinds of heartache and misery, and times when you will wonder if independence, freedom of thought, or your own work is worth it all. We must believe that it is. For the world is not good enough; we must make it better."

Gabon, 1980’s. President Omar Bongo has been in power since 1967. Together with his wife, the infamous singer Patience Dabany, he invents one of the ultimate political propaganda machine: ‘animation groups’, massive female choirs and dancers, up to 60 women deep, singing the praise of his regime over some of the best soukous rhythms ever, broadcasted live on TV.

"Tropical Gangsters" is the 3rd album by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, released on May 10, 1982. Originally conceived as a solo album by band leader August Darnell and titled Wise Guy, his label ZE Records pressured him to change it to a Kid Creole and the Coconuts record and to make it more commercial sounding in order to relieve the label's financial problems. Despite the tensions this caused within the band and Darnell's complaint that the subsequent record was a "cop-out", the more dance-pop oriented sound helped it reached #145 on the Billboard 200 album chart, representing the group's commercial breakthrough in their home country. However, to the surprise of Darnell and his record company Tropical Gangsters was a huge success in Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and in particular the UK, where the album peaked at #3 in the UK Albums Chart and yielded three Top 10 singles. Tropical Gangsters made Darnell a worldwide star, and the album remains both his and the ZE label's most successful record by far.