Henri Dikongué was born in Douala, Cameroon into a musically talented family. It's no surprise, then, that he sang in a local church choir with his grandmother and learnt basic guitar skills from his uncle. However Henri's parents were not prepared for their son to be a professional musician. Henri began Law studies in a University in France in 1989 but soon abandoned that course and enrolled in Ecole Normale de Musique instead. With no financial support for that he had to do casual work while becoming part of the African music scene in Paris at that time. Henri continued composing and performing. Another interest of Henri's was theatre and he set up his own company, Masques et Tam-Tam. At one time he also worked with the South African choir 'Banthu Maranatha' and collaborated with Manu Dibango, Manuel Wandji and Papa Wemba. He cites the late Cameroonian composer Eboa Lotin, vocalist/poet Pierre Akendengue and Armenian-born French singer-composer Charles Aznavour as influences. Henri has a song, 'Ndol'asu', which was written by Eboa Lotin, on the very attractive 2002 compilation CD Africanesque.
Being a very meticulous composer, Henri worked on his own first album project, Wa, for a number of years before it was released in 1995. The lyrics, which cover issues such as war and racism, were first written in French and then translated into Douala