Tarika: Ankoay

A video filmed in Madagascar for "Ankoay" from Tarika's 1994 debut album "Balance". For the previous couple of years, Tarika's leader Hanitra Rasoanaivo and her sister Noro Raharimalala had fronted the band Tarika Sammy. When that line-up split up at the end of 1993, Hanitra set about finding new musicians and Tarika were born, going on to become Madagascar's most successful musical export of the 1990s and eventually one of the top bands in the country. Balance was recorded very soon after the new line-up formed, as they embarked on their first major tour of Europe and the USA. Ankoay was a song about a rare species of bird which was getting a lot of international attention. It contrasts this with the little help that poor Malagasy people were getting, challenging the priorities of the then corrupt government and asking if you have to become an endangered species before anybody notices you. That definitely applied to people playing local traditionally based music in Madagascar at the time too, something that Tarika succeeded in changing.