MansA Heritage
MansA Heritage is the programming strand dedicated to transmitting the memories, stories, and living heritage of African and Afro-diasporic cultures. Through festive, artistic, and memorial events, MansA Heritage celebrates Afro-descendant cultural expressions that shape our contemporary world.
MansA Heritage shines a light on the diversity of cultural legacies from Africa and its diasporas. The program creates events where visual arts, music, performance, archives, and testimonies intersect, transmitting and reactivating often overlooked memories.
Whether celebrating the history of Black balls, exploring the evolution of Brazilian baile funk, or tracing the sonic legacies of Afro-Parisian scenes, each project resonates between past and present, with a commitment to transmission, innovation, and accessibility.
The Sound of Black Paris Nights
Jazz Sauce Combo: Le Bal du Paris Noir
Coinciding with the Paris Noir exhibition at the Centre Pompidou (March-June 2025), MansA launched its Heritage cycle on Sunday, April 25 at La Bellevilloise, with a festive evening combining music, dance and memory. Conceived in collaboration with Jay One Ramier, the event celebrated Afro-Parisian nightlife from the 1950s to the 2000s through biguine, mambo, rumba, and free jazz. The program featured talks, live performances by the Paris Noir Orchestra conducted by Marc Vorchin, and contributions from artists and scholars retracing the cultural effervescence of Afro-descendant diasporas in Paris.
Electric Makossa, closing night
Next stop: Thursday, June 26, from midnight to 6 a.m. at Les Étoiles, with Electric Makossa, another club night by Jay One Ramier. Legendary French hip-hop pioneer DJ Chabin will open the evening with mixes blending funk, reggae-dub, jazz rock, soul, rap, and Afro-Caribbean sounds, accompanied by smurfers and breakdancers. He will be followed by DJ Dre Tala, a rising star on the Paris scene, with a fiery set of zouk, afrobeat, shatta, bouyon, and amapiano, plus surprise guests.
Restoring the films of Sarah Maldoror
As part of the Paris Noir exhibition, MansA oversaw the restoration of three works by Sarah Maldoror: *Et les chiens se taisaient* (1978), *Aimé Césaire – Le masque des mots* (1987), and *Regards de mémoire* (2003). Carried out in collaboration with her daughter, Annouchka de Andrade, and the L’Image retrouvée laboratory in Paris, this initiative helps preserve and promote the legacy of a major filmmaker in the history of African-descendant communities. The two restored films were screened for the first time at the Centre Pompidou in April 2025.
Original soundtrack for Paris Noir
To accompany the Paris Noir exhibition, MansA has also created an original soundtrack composed by François Giot, tracing the musical history of people of African descent in Paris from 1950 to 2000. Divided into four thematic playlists—Musardise in Black Paris, Africa in Paris, Paris Caribbean, and Paris Blues—this audio creation invites listeners to immerse themselves in jazz, funk, gwoka, rumba, hip-hop, and many other influences.
2. Restoration of the film *Aimé Césaire – Le masque des mots* (1987) at the L’Image retrouvée laboratory in Paris. © MansA – All rights reserved
