Call it third world, on the other side of the world, whatever. One thing is for sure. The country is out of this world…magical. You should go there. But before you go and spend 2G's on a plane ticket, experience the magic of Madagascar through the music of Jaojoby - Madagascar's beloved musical hero and its closest thing to rock royalty - when he plays this month in Chicago. This is his story, as told to a visiting American journalist from his home near Madagascar's capital and as he ran errands in the streets, waving to adoring fans along the way...

Madagascar's newspapers hail him as the "King of Salegy," the best-known and most widely exported dance pop music of Madagascar. When asked about the title, Eusèbe Jaojoby throws his hands up in the air and modestly exclaims, "Non, no, that is only what the papers say!" Regardless of what this Malagasy music legend or the media say, one thing is for sure: his name and Africa's salegy are synonymous with one another. Jaojoby did not father salegy. Originating in Indonesia, salegy reached the shores of Madagascar centuries before Jaojoby could even hold a microphone.

The first settlers arrived on the southeastern beaches of Madagascar with their 'zaleg'. The music spread across the island, making its way to the northeastern part of Madagascar where it found Jaojoby. The eldest of 13 children, Jaojoby got his start in music singing in church and in his village. Village functions involved playing handmade wooden instruments indigenous to the area and singing the folklore of ancestors for hours on end. Little Jaojoby would imitate these routines, and by the time he was 10 he was "deep in love" with the hosiky tsimihety, or song of the tsimihety, his village's tribe. But education beckoned, and at the age of 15 his father sent him to the regional capitol of the north, Diego Suarez, for schooling.

A month after arriving, he entered his first singing contest. Having no experience playing with any musicians outside of his village, Jaojoby belted out his tenor voice and won. Thus the beginning of what would become the nation's hippest dance craze.

A couple of years before the teen Jaojoby graced the stage in 1970, modern musical influences invaded Madagascar. The traditional sounds of Malagasy villages were soon being tweaked and recorded on 45-vinyls. The natural features of handmade jembes were replaced by the shine of modern drum sets. The kaiamba, a grain-filled bamboo stick that one shakes, was traded in for the modern drum set's cymbals. The wailing of the electric guitar drowned out Madagascar's trademark valiha, a hollow piece of bamboo surrounded by strings, and the sound of the accordion gained popularity.

In developing Diego Suarez, Jaojoby incorporated the traditional lyrics of the tsimihety into the rhythm and blues of modern instruments. His voice made crowds dance through the night. By 1976, he recorded his first CD with a group called The Players. It consisted of four songs on two 45s. He describes his first recordings and those early times performing at bars as "giving the people what they needed, that cha-cha-cha, to move their body."

In 1979, The Players separated and Jaojoby relocated to Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo (Tana), to further pursue his studies. Bored with sociology, Jaojoby found a job at the national radio station. Fate would have it that right across the street from Radio National Madagascar (RNM) stands the Hilton, the city's most prestigious soirée headquarters. Within a year, Jaojoby was singing on the Hilton's stage. During the day he would broadcast the news and at night, he spread a different message to posh crowds. His position in the media field aided his popularity. Befriending a community of journalists through his work, Jaojoby took his musicianship to public heights with his professional connections.

However, in 1984, the radio station relocated Jaojoby back to Diego Suarez. There, his double life tore at him and in 1987 he went back to Tana to cut a record. A year later when he returned to Tana, the record had become a hit and the reign of the "King of Salegy" began. Soon he was flying to international crowds in France, Singapore, Côte d' Ivoire. His job as a journalist faded out as quickly as the natural sounds of Madagascar's kaiamba.

Back in the living room of his home in the suburbs of Tana, Jaojoby reiterates the purpose of salegy. "It is the a cappella of the village." His accented, melodic speaking voice often stops in between words to think of how to translate them. "If you play a cappella you are playing the songs of our ancestors, but if we take electrical instruments…and we play our ancestors music...with these electrical instruments...the salegy is born!"

When asked if he feels salegy threatens Malagasy tradition, Jaojoby explains, "More than 80 percent of Malagasy people are living in the countryside. These people have their own folklore even if they listen to the radio or watch television." The folklore that Jaojoby is talking about is music created and passed down through generations at communal celebrations, like circumcisions and exhumations called famadihanas. These traditions still exist and are practiced today just as they were centuries ago in the slowly developing Malagasy countryside.

"Whitney Houston or reggae," continues Jaojoby, "are popular in Madagascar, yeah, but the majority [of Malagasy] still listen to their own music, I mean the salegy. If you go out and there is a band playing, they always know how to play salegy. It is our music. It is in our conscious. We have it in our blood." In his lifetime, Jaojoby has taken Malagasy tradition and digested it in such a way that it comes out sounding ancestral but infused with modern sound. Keeping this respect for the past, Jaojoby successfully creates music adored by people across Madagascar.

"The electrical instruments are used to make the music more heavy...to give it more decibels, to make the people dance," he explains. For this reason his salegy has been stapled as the dance music of the country. "With the salegy a trance exists. It is a type of ambiance. So, when the people hear it, they come to the dance floor as if they were in a trance. When they dance they are in a trance," he reveals to me. "This is only with the 6/8 beat of the salegy. If you play tsapiky or some other type of Malagasy music, you will not feel the trance."
Listening to his upcoming release in the car as he runs errands around Tana, Jaojoby explains to me the meaning of his music. His past career as a journalist showed him the importance of a voice that reaches so many people. His songs serve to inform the Malagasy about AIDS, peace with neighbors, God, the environment, and improving daily life in impoverished Madagascar. Yet his favorite thing to sing about is love. "Kaza Miahiahy" is a love ballad with a Kenny G-like sound. "Don't worry/ I am yours and you are mine/ Even if we are apart/ You can trust me baby…" ("It will be a hit!," he assures me, pointing at the stereo.)

On his new CD, Jaojoby adds two saxophones, a trumpet, and a trombone. Some tracks bear the quality of AC/DC guitar licks, others ring with tropical beats reminiscent of reggae, but they all employ the fiery tempo of the salegy. Unlike some of his past work, where some songs sound indistinguishable, his latest recording is filled with different tones. The mélange of so many instruments and voices makes it obvious that Jaojoby continues to paint his masterpiece of a genre.

"I have a big goal in life," he confides in me, "to be a person who speaks loud and strong to the people." As we continue through the narrow streets of Tana, people turn their heads to find the source of the blaring music. When the car stops in traffic, some passers-by break out into a self-composed, unconscious dance upon hearing the music. I look down at my feet and notice that they tap to the beat. The trance.

Listening to his music makes you want to dance - and the reaction of people in the streets only proves this. "Yeah, it is to be heard by everybody, loud and strong," he reiterates as he smiles and laughs a hello to an adoring fan in the streets. As his voice comes in on the next track of the car stereo, I look around at all the happy acknowledging faces and realize that Jaojoby has already done just that.

No wonder he is king.

Jaojoby will play at the HotHouse August 25.