The first three notes filled the sweltering afternoon air and partygoers instantly jammed the dance floor, women crying out in high-pitched wails of excitement.

To the joyful tune of a synthetic brass band, the dancers placed imaginary handcuffs on each other's wrists.

First twisting and turning along with the upbeat tempo, the simulated prisoners began reeling as if tortured -- mimics of pain on their face -- as soon as the song's first words rang out:

"Guantanamo! Guantanamo! Guantanamo!"

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A BEAT AND A MESSAGE

Why has a song like this taken parts of Africa by storm?

Composed by DJ Zidane, an artist from Congo who lives in Ivory Coast, this song is in the musical style called "coupé-décalé," which roughly translates from the French as "sliced and sidestepped." It mixes jazzy modern tunes with the rhythmic drumming of traditional African music, and often features very serious lyrics.

"There was a time when African musicians would sing about love and meeting a beautiful young lady," said Japhet Koumato, who owns La Plantation, a vast open-air disco on the outskirts of the Chadian capital, N'djamena. "But it's over."

He said the top African hits have often been political satires, playing off the misery, insecurity and lack of democracy that plagues much of the continent.

"We criticize, but with a lot of humor," he said. "It's an African tradition."

In his black limousine parked behind the disco, Koumato demonstrated this by playing the hit that preceded "Guantanamo" -- a tune called "Avian Flu." Also composed by an Ivory Coast artist, the song inspired nightclub patrons to perform a dance that oddly hinted at the motions of a beheaded chicken. This at a time when the H5N1 strain of bird flu killed several people in Africa and threatened to become a worldwide epidemic.

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BITING SATIRE

"Guantanamo isn't a song against America. It's a song against injustice and abuse."

That's how Koumato explained the popular song. But not everyone seems to agree.

Abakar Sherif, who frequently plays the song at full volume while driving his taxi, said he thought "Guantanamo" had become such a hit because it felt so close to home. In its fight against terrorism, the taxi driver said with a tone of indignation, the U.S. has resolved to arrest suspects and hold them at Guantanamo Bay without right to a trial.

Taking a jab at the U.S.-run prison is also a good way to criticize Chadian jails without ending up in one, Sherif said with a grin.

"If Americans arrest you, innocent or guilty, there's no way out," Sherif said. "Brutality, injustice ... it's just like Africa."

Back on the dance floor, Caroline Nanoudi had ceased the torture-posturing dance and was now waiving her finger as if to say, "No, no, no." At the same time, the song's lyrics said a Guantanamo prisoner is gone for so long that his friends probably think him dead and steal his wife.

DJ Fidele, the resident deejay at La Plantation, said the dancing gimmicks had not come with the song but were "intuitively" invented by listeners on the dance floor.

"I don't know how it began, but that's definitely the only way to dance it now," he said in the disco's shabby sound studio. Hundreds of dancers followed the unlikely choreography, proving his point.

"In the difficult situation we face, dancing helps blow some of the pressure off," he said. "It helps young Chadians forget the daily struggle."

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TROUBLED CAPITAL

More an overgrown desert outpost than a modern metropolis, N'djamena is the capital of one of the poorest countries in the world.

Amid buildings pockmarked by bullets from decades of civil war -- the latest rebel raid was last year, but near-weekly rumors suggest they're coming back -- N'djamena has a handful of restaurants and three nightclubs. All of them are too expensive for most Chadians -- and besides, residents usually don't take chances at night along the city's dark and largely unpaved streets, where they risk being held for ransom by rogue police units or bandit groups.

At La Plantation, patrons said the low entrance fees and the 8 p.m. closing time have helped keep the disco at the top of Chad's social scene for the past 16 years.

Everybody who is anybody in N'djamena comes here on Sunday afternoons, said Jean-Francois Melio, a customer. Panting from the heat, he sipped a potent local beer near the entrance, watching as whole families walked in and mingled with expatriates, high-ranking Chadian officials in ample cotton robes and clusters of young women in miniskirts. By dusk, the disco had filled to its capacity of 1,500.

Mammoth loudspeakers blasted 3,000 kilowatts of sound into the twilight. In the distance, children and fishermen could be seen dancing to the music along the banks of the vast Chari River, which flows through this dirt-poor neighborhood.

The last measures of "Guantanamo" eventually died off and dozens of dancers joyfully applauded. Some shouted their favorite verse one last time, trying to shout over the deejay's next tune.

"This song is like everything else in our lives," said Nanoudi, the dancer -- who struggles as an unemployed hairdresser the rest of the week.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"Better to laugh it off than to cry."

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asap contributor Alfred de Montesquiou is an AP reporter based in Cairo. He has spend much of the past several months reporting from Darfur and other parts of Sudan, and has made occasional reporting trips into Chad.

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