Ever since his solo debuts in 1999, Richard Bona has defended the idea of music that's universal: generous and accessible to all. He was born in 1967 in Minta, a tiny Cameroon village, into a family where both his mother and grandfather were singers. Richard was playing the balafon by the time he was four, and then he taught himself to play the guitar. Later, in the capital of Douala, a jazz-club owner played him records by bassist Jaco Pastorius; Richard decided he'd teach himself to play the bass as well.
In 1989 he went to Europe, living in Germany for a while before moving to France to complete his bass education. He took lessons for some seven years in Paris, and at the same time he became a familiar figure in the capital's clubs, where he met Didier Lockwood and Marc Ducret, and the Africans Manu Dibango and Salif Keita. "It was a very formative period; I was meeting people whose styles varied." In 1995 Richard went to New York. For the next few months he visited the city's famous jazz clubs and worked with Michael and Randy Brecker, Pat Metheny, Larry Coryell, Mike Stern, Steve Gadd, Joe Zawinul, even singer Harry Belafonte. Richard Bona suddenly had a reputation for being one of the best bassists of his time, and by now he was also giving people a glimpse of his other talents as a composer and singer. A solo career was beckoning.