The CD release of Konono No 1’s Congotronics (Crammed Discs, 2004) triggered a small phenomenon in Afropop marketing.  At a time when mainstream Congolese music—once the commercial powerhouse of Africa—has been fading for years, the rough-edged, electrified village music of Kinshasa’s hidden neighborhoods is finding surprising favor with international audiences.  Congotronics 2: Buzz ‘n’ Rumble from the Urb’n Jungle (Crammed Discs, 2005) is now out with a CD and DVD featuring seven urban traditional bands, Masanka Sankayi, Sobanza Mimanisa, Bolia We Ndenge, Basokin, Tulu, Kasai Allstars, and of course, Konono No1.  And there’s more to come.  Hard to say how far the Congotronics wave will extend, but it’s certainly something to watch.

Afropop Worldwide’s program “The Congotronics Story” grew out of an interview Banning Eyre did with Congotronics producer, Vincent Kenis, at the WOMEX conference in Newcaslte, UK in October, 2005.  Kenis, it turns out, has been the driving force behind the Congotronics series, and he’s got quite a story to tell.  For the producers of Afropop, the story has special resonance, taking us back to our 1987 visit to Kinshasa when we recorded Kasai village music in a small Matonge bar, and met the great Benoit Quersin—musician, field recordist, museum director, and mentor to the young Vincent Kenis.  We’ve pulled all this and more together in the radio program.  This feature offers a scrapbook of quotes (mostly from Vincent Kenis), recollections, and images related to the Congotronics story. 

At its heart, this is a story about the musicians themselves.  But what becomes clear is that we would likely never have seen or heard these groups were it not for Kenis’s passion and perseverance, and also his alliance with the Belgian label Crammed Discs.  Kenis had help, especially from those who inspired him, like Quersin, French field researcher Bernard Treton, another fellow traveler in the exploration of Congo roots music, Tony Van der Eecken, and no doubt many others. 

Vincent Kenis on his beginnings:  “In 1962, I was 11 years old, and a friend of mine at school, her mother was the girlfriend of Fonseca, a Cape Verdean musician based in Brussels.  His orchestra was called Les Anges Noires, The Black Angels.  We had a newspaper at school, and we decided to go interview him.  At the time, Manu Dibango had just quit the group to go and join African Jazz in Kinshasa.  African Jazz came to Brussels in 1960 four the Table Ronde, which led to independence a few months after that.  So they went to see the Black Angels, and they saw Manu Dibango, and they said, "Okay, you want to come with us in Africa?"  And he didn't decide to do it right away, but the next time they came to Europe, the second round of talks, they took them with them.  He was supposed to go in Kinshasa for just a tour, but I think he stayed there for more than a year.  Well, that was my first encounter with commercial African music.  Fonseca was Cape Verdean, but his wife was from Martinique, and most of his musicians were Congolese.

“Then after that, in 1970, I met Benoit Quersin, who used to be a bass player with Phil Woods.  Back then he had a jazz club and Brussels, and he made very good broadcasts about jazz, because he was a personal friend of the greats.  He did a very good interview with Thelonious Monk.  A friend of mine was studying journalism at university and he had to assist someone working in radio.  He chose Benoit Quersin, who was on his way to leave Belgium for a long time because he had just been enrolled as Director of Ethnomusicology for the Museum of Zaire, Congo at that time.  So we made friends.  I remember that Benoit had Keith Jarrett staying at his place.  Keith Jarrett was playing every day in Brussels for a month.  He was completely unknown at the time.  And so I met Keith Jarrett at his place, and we listened to the tapes that he'd recorded the year before that among the Konda, from around Bandak, which is around 200 km north of Kinshasa, in the equatorial region.  These recordings led to an album that came out on Occora called Polyphony Mongo, which is an amazing record.  One day, Benoit went to Paris and gave me the key to his apartment and said, "If you want to listen, go ahead."  So I listened for 60 hours to these field recordings from the Congo, and I never recovered from that.

“So I had quite an idea about Congolese music, traditional and modern.  After that, as a salsa player, I of course encountered a lot of Congolese because Congolese are much better in Belgium at playing Cuban music.  You must know that Cuban music has been a major influence on them.  From there I met Dalienst Ntesa, who used to be a singer with OK Jazz.  I toured with him as a keyboard player.  I also did some tracks with Papa Wemba.  I played on La Vie Est Belle, the music for the film.  I played bass and guitar.  Because there was no guitarist.  They were in a hurry, and I was upstairs in the studio.  They came and said, ‘I heard you played some Congolese guitar….’”

Vincent Kenis first visited Congo in 1971, for just five days.  At the time, President Mobutu Sese Seko was promoting Congolese culture through his “authenticity” program.  Some of what Mobutu put forth was not in fact authentic.  For instance, he invented a national dress code.  Kenis encountered guitar band pop on that trip, but he also found it quite easy to hear roots music in Kinshasa.  Lubangi Muniania, an authority on and great fan of all sorts of Congolese music also spoke to us about Mobutu’s authenticity campaign and its impact on popular groups, like Zaiko Langa Langa.

Vincent Kenis on Mobutu’s “Authenticité” campaign.  That was a very good time for tradi-modern music because at that time, Mobutu used to give plenty of money to musicians because he wanted music to be a vector of his propaganda, his Pan Africanist, nationalist discourse.  In the seventies, there with this authenticité campaign, which basically said we don't need to listen to other cultures.  We're the strongest.  We're the best.  Women are not allowed to wear pants any more.  And people had to change their names to authentic names, whatever that means.  Also, no more foreign music on the radio.  All of Congo turned into a culturally authentic place, which is no big deal, because Congo is as big as a continent.  You can listen to one different style of music every day for a whole life without relying on foreign music.  You know, I have realized that some of the most interesting music has emerged from totalitarian places. 

Lubangi Muniania:  Remember Zaiko was born in 1969 and it really became active in 1970, so when 1971 came along, it was natural for them to become part of that movement, authenticite.  They became authentic.  All the songs they did pretty much from then on were based on tradition.  Even now, they still do it. So Zaiko was being inspired.  That’s where Zaiko used to go and get their new stuff, and Zaiko was being creative throughout the 70s and 80s because they were going back to Konono and getting all the Konono stuff and performing that.  So that’s why today, people listen to Konono thinking, “Wow, this is so new.”  But we danced to Konono style since the 70s and 80s.  It’s known as masikilu, that type of music.  …  That guitar line is exactly the same as the thumb piano that you hear from Konono, and there are several groups like that you hear throughout Kinshasa that inspired a lot of these groups, so that’s really what authenticité did. 

Vincent Kenis did not return to Congo until 1989.  But in the meantime, his experiences kept reminding him of a largely overlooked roots story behind the then-surging tide of Congolese pop music.  This was the heyday of “soukous”—Kanda Bongo Man, Papa Wemba, Soukous Stars, Four Stars, Tabu Ley Rochereau and others, all touring internationally.  But even during those years, there were occasional hints about urban traditional music.

Vincent Kenis:  I listened to broadcasts by Bernard Treton, a guy working for France Culture.  He was to go to Kinshasa for one year to help build national Zairian radio, and while he was there, he heard this traditional modern, amplified music, and he was amazed.  He was also a jazz man and he had a good ear.  He managed to record several of these groups, and that music came out on Ocora.  The disc is called Musiques Urbaines a Kinshasa.  Actually, the record came out six or seven years later (in 1987), but in 1980, when I heard the original broadcast, I was lucky enough to record it, because it was difficult to get France Culture in Brussels.  And so I had this cassette.  It was very precious to me.  I listened to it and played it for a lot of friends. 

At that time, I knew Ray Lema, a Congolese musician who lives in Paris now, and I made him listen to this.  I said, “You are supposed to play the Congolese music of the future.  Let me tell you.  This is the Congolese music of the future.”  I was just joking, but two years after that, I met him by chance in the studio in Paris.  I was recording with a Cameroonian guitar player and he was in studio.  He said, "Listen.  Come here."  And he gave me the cans, and it was a kind of Konono imitation with synthesizers.” 

When Afropop Worldwide visited Kinshasa in 1987, we went to the national museum in Kinshasa, not far from the presidential palace, and met Benoit Quersin.  He showed us a virtual warehouse full of drums and other instruments.  It seemed to haunt him, because as he explained, instruments have souls, and are meant to be played, not locked away on shelves.  We took a trip out to Quersin’s place, well out of town in rolling, green hill country.  We met his beautiful, Congolese wife, and ate a fabulous meal on a table out on the lawn, with Miles Davis music blasting out of stereo speakers from the house.  Afterwards, we went inside and listened to some of the recordings he had made on his many trips to the interior.  He spoke of the moment when he heard a traditional group, probably one using horn polyphony, and it sounded to him like the Count Basie orchestra.  Connections between jazz and African indigenous music fascinated him.  As for the contemporary music we were excitedly discovering in Kinshasa, Quersin was openly contemptuous. 

Vincent Kenis on Benoit Quersin:  “I stayed his place, and he didn't like commercial Congolese music very much.  For him, it was decadent, or spoiled, or whatever, and he never forgave me.  The day he married his wife in Kinshasa, he invited me, and I said, "No, I can't because I'm going to play with Kofi Olomide tonight."  He said, "What!?"  But he had a very good ear, and very good taste, and he knew a lot of things.  He died in 1991, and I think it's a pity that he didn't ever write a book about everything that he knew, because when you listened to him speak about this, he knew everything inside out.  He was a great resource, and a very good man.” 

In 1989 and again in 1996, Kenis returned to Kinshasa looking for roots groups.  He was especially interested in the Bazombo likembe (thumb piano) group, Konono No 1.  But nobody seemed to know where they were.  Mawangu Mingiedi is not surprised.

Mawangu Mingiedi:  “When Vincent used to come to look for me, I was in Bakongo.  I was invited there.  Konono was playing in villages in different places, and parties for a longtime.  That's why Vincent couldn't find me.  We didn't stop.  We kept playing.  But you had to know where we were, exactly where we were playing.  Even if you asked people, they wouldn't tell you.  You had to know my address.  By asking people, you would never know where I was.  People would say, "We don't know.  We don't know."  I was very surprised when we went to Europe, they had written in the notes of some CD that I was already dead, that I had died a long time ago.  Vincent was the one who really went beyond all these barriers and heped us.”

Vincent Kenis:  “When I went there in 89, I did find these Kasaian groups.  But still no Konono.  Only in 2000, I found a Konono fan club.  I left a note.   Somebody told me that they were in Angola, or that they had stopped working altogether.  I heard that Mingiedi was working as a taxi driver, and that some people had gone back to the village, because when times are rough, at least artists in the village can eat.  In the cities, it is much harder.  So, in 2000, I met them.  I had made a lot of recordings that year of different groups, not only tradi-modern, but also traditional.  And Konono just reappeared, and I suspect that they reappeared because I had insisted so much for them to reappear, because there was no other reason for them to exist.  They don't sustain themselves by doing music.

“At that point, they were hired by a guy in Njili, and they played quite regularly on Saturdays.  There was a kind of Bazombo community around there.  It has to be known that these people are really outside of the mains scene in Kinshasa.  They don't even speak Lingala fluently.  They can’t read or write.  They are refugees, or sons of refugees, and in Kinshasa, you have whole neighborhoods which are made of people coming from the same region, who more or less stay in a close circuit.  So these people, they can have a certain audience, and they can play at maybe this one place every Saturday.  But you can't live playing every Saturday in Kinshasa.  You have to play every day, or two times a day.  When I met Swede Swede, [an excellent “tradi-modern” group Kenis recorded on the CD Toleki Bango (Miles Ahead) in 1991], they were playing three or four times today.  They were not even rich.  That’s how it went.  Swede Swede was actually the first album of the Congotronics series.  I didn't know yet it was the Congotronics series.  It was 14 years ago, the Swede Swede album, but it’s quite in the same vein, and quite the same situation.  You could almost exchange the stories of all these musicians.  They are musicians who come from outside of Kinshasa, or just were born in Kinshasa from parents who had no contact with the sophisticated, real Kinois, who live in the suburbs, and how they speak the real Kinois language, live among the old community—and suddenly they come out with a sound that everybody likes, regardless of origin or tribe or what ever.  These groups are the ones who regenerate the music and Congo, and I think that's one of the reason why music and Congo, I mean the commercial, modern music and Congo nowadays is so static.  Static, well--you can argue about that…”

Konono No 1 

“Some people say that Konono is a style, but the Konono people themselves told me that it's just a word to describe this stiffness of the body, and it's a way to tell people to be gentle to their neighbors, because otherwise when they die, nobody will be there to massage them.  Because when somebody dies, they massage his body so the get stiff as late as possible.  So if you're not very good your neighbors, none of them will massage you when you die, and you will be stiff immediately.  Konono means stiff.  All of these tradi-modern groups are necessarily connected with death, because the primary function is to play for the dead, or for the people who just died, or for the ancestors.  They are the link with the dead, especially in the city were all these things don't matter so much anymore, because all these people lose touch with their roots.  They're pretty much like community groups.”

Mawangu Mingiedi:  “This music was always a part of life.  It was there during births, marriages, during funerals.  And we also played for the authorities when they needed to hear some nice sound.  But I never received support of any sort from the government.  People were probably supposed to give me support.  But instead, they were the ones who would come in and take my stuff and run away with it.  They made money producing records and presenting it out there.  I was always on the back burner.  When I first came to Kinshasa, I started playing my songs at funerals, the last day of funerals, when people were mourning, on the last day of mourning.  During a funeral, we play a lot of songs that are love related, because the departed one needs to be consoled.  So to get him or her, or the family, away from sorrows, we bring love to the person.  We do a lot of songs related to that, and also songs to help them to be welcome to the world of the ancestors.  There are specific songs played during a funeral that do that.  Those songs are designed to take the sorrows way from the beloved one’s heart, to help them feel good during the funeral, and then after the funeral.

“That's what we call masikilu.  It's a style of music.  It used to be played with drums and a trumpet made out of an elephant's task.  I took that sound and modified it by using the likembe, the thumb piano, likembe.  It was made out of bamboo back then.  But I also used to play a lot with electronics, radios and whatnot.  Then one day I just hit me.  I decided to convert the bamboo to metal so I could make a better sound from the likembe.  We still play for our ancestors and everyone who has departed.  They are here all the time.  Although I have changed from the bamboo to the metal and the electronics, I'm still communicating with my ancestors all the time, even here in America. 

“So our music used to attract a lot of different kinds of people, musicians included.  Then all of a sudden I started hearing my songs on the radio.  People who are used to playing electric guitars, they would copy my songs, modify a little bit, and then they would exploit it.  They did that for many, many, many years.  Nyoko Longo.  Zaiko Langa Langa.  70s.  80s.  Now Werra Son.  All of them.  They need me.  They can't do anything without me.  They need to listen to me, my likembe, the combination of drums, and the sound.  So they take it and perfect it.  But from then until today, here I am, empty handed.” 

The classic Zaiko Langa Langa song, “Zaiko Wa Wa,” recorded for the Zaire-Ghana album in 1976, is a direct adaptation of a Konono No 1 song.  Just one example.  But groups like Konono had bigger problem than pop musicians making money off their songs.  In the 80s, the enthusiasm about authenticité faded some, and there were less “official” gigs.  And that’s not all…

Vincent Kenis:  The reason why these groups almost stopped existing, and the reason I didn't find them in ‘89, is because their role had been stolen by the new churches.  You know, all these churches coming from abroad, these evangelists, they want the place where these groups are.  They want to be the center of mourning of the community, so what they do is they say that traditional music is satanic, and they say, ‘Why do you want to hire these people?  They cost money.  They drink too much.  They don't have their own PA.  You have to hire one.’  And you know, it's a four or five day affair, mourning in the Congo.  It's not cheap to do that.  So these churches would say, ‘Why don't you use our PA?  We give it for free.  The only condition is that to play our cassette.’  And so the mourning ceremony turns into propaganda for these churches.  For five days, you hear one or two songs all the time, until two in the mourning.”

Recording in Kinshasa…

Vincent Kenis:  “So in 2000, I had an 8-track machine and a camera.  I went from place to place [looking for a place to record and film.]  I had a very good friend working at the UNAFROCO (Union National des Artistes de Folklore Congolais), who opened a lot of doors for me.  I worked only with Congolese people.  And I explained what I was trying to do.  It was just a tentative idea.  I needed their trust.  I said, "I don't have a lot of money.  I want to show what you're doing to the world.  So I want to record you and film you.  Let's see what happens.  If I can do something, I will come back to you and…”  Like this.  There was this other group called Kasai All Stars, which is the union of groups from different regions of Kasai.  You know that West Kasai and East Kasai don't get along together supposedly.  But I more or less convinced them to play together anyway, because I had a plan to bring them to Belgiam, and I couldn't bring two or three different groups, because that would mean 25 persons.  So I said, ‘Why don't you just take four musicians from each of before groups that I prefer, and try to do something together?’

“At first, there was strong resistance.  They said, ‘Oh, we're not even tuned together.’  So I said, ‘Why don't you build a second xylophone?  So the first xylophone you play your own music, and the second one…. just try.  Try to do something.’  One singer from West Kasai was a very attractive woman, and very nice.  And I knew that the singer of East Kasai liked her very much.  So I said, ‘You should sing with her.  Anyway, you have almost the same name.’  One was called Mambuye and the other was Muyambe, which is the same letters.  They liked very much the idea, for many reasons, of course because they wanted to come to Europe.  They tried to work together, and it worked.  They came to Europe for five days only.  They played for the Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels.  And after that, they came back to Congo and I thought, that's the end of the story.  Because there's no money involved.  There's no reason why they would play together.  They have their own publics.  The West Kasai people in Kinshasa don't go to the clubs where the East Kasai music is being played.  But to my big surprise, they kept on playing together.  They found it interesting.  Maybe they found political reasons to do it, because some people are trying to advocate for greater Kasai, whatever that means.  I'm not sure I like the idea is so much, but that's another problem.” 

So Konono, I recorded them only in 2002.  Because when I looked for them in 2000, I went back to Europe before they came together again.  They came together again six months after that.  I meant to go back right away, but didn't manage to do it for various reasons.  I went back in 2002 with a friend of mine called Tony Van der Eeken.  We succeeded in getting money to organize a toure of these super Kasaian groups inside Kasai itself.  Crammed Discs was supposed to record the tour, and for different reasons, it didn't work out.  So after they came back, I recorded them in Kinshasa.  And that the time, I wanted just to get this recording done, and go back home.  But then I heard that Konono was still there.  I said, ‘Okay, let's do something before I leave.’ 

“At that time, La Cite de la Musique in Paris had been in contact, they were interested in Konono.  I wanted to bring them to Paris.  So I thought, okay let's record Konono.  Actually, I tried three times.  The first time the electricity went out.  The second time, I rented a generator which worked perfectly as a motor, but didn't produce any electricity.  And the third time, I brought them to the Centre Culturel Francais, which was reliable for electricity.  They had a very big corrugated iron roof which sounded great like reverb.  You could clap and hear it crashing.  It was really nice.  Like when you're in the front of a building with a lot of stairs and you clap your hands. 

“After that, I tried to go back to Congo, but it wasn't possible for many reasons.  I went to see them.  They came to Paris, and they came to do a few concerts in Holland.  And I went to see some of these concerts.  I couldn't record them because the conditions were very bad.  One of the last concerts was sponsored by Crammed.  And at the last moment, some musicians were not there, and so other musicians were hired.  I didn't agree very much with the kind of musicians who were hired.  They were from a style that was more close to soukous.  And I thought that's not the real Konono.  I don't want to record Konono with musicians were not part of the group.  I said let's record them later when they're back in Kinshasa.  And then six months later, I realized I wouldn't be able to go to Kinshasa, and I listened again to what I had done in 2002, and I thought that for me it was much better than everything it heard in Europe from them.

“You talk about spirituality in the music.  I don't think a group like Konono when it plays in front of a Dutch audience—which is really nice; I mean, it's a nice surprise for the audience, but I don't think you get the same kind of spirituality.  They want to show off because they're like Martians.  They are aliens, and they start acting like aliens.  And they lose a part of the music that is very strong, and very reflective, and very progressive.  I felt that in the recording and in the concerts that they did in Kinshasa.  There was some kind of continuity, some kind of driving force that I didn't find so much in Europe.  So, I said, ‘Well, what I recorded in Kinshasa is really great.  Let's do it.’ 

“On that 2002 trip, I had a laptop recorder.  I could record 16 tracks, and also, most importantly, after the recording, I could take the recording studio under my arm and go to the hotel room and start mixing right away.  So the logical thing to do was to bring some of the musicians into the hotel room, and ask them, ‘What do you want?  How do you feel the balance should be?  How loud should this instrument be?  What you think about the sound of this and that?’  And it was really amazing.  Because there was no cultural filter between us anymore.  It was just music, sounds, trying to make it work through speakers, which is what production should be about, and not a power game between black and white, which I really dislike.  This is one of the reasons why I don't like a lot of world music, because I can hear, and I can feel that there is a misunderstanding between what the musicians want and what the producer pretends to be standing for.  ‘I know the market.  I know what people like.  I know he should change this music to do this or that.’  I don't like this role.  And also, I’m kind of a shy guy.  When it comes to radically changing something, I don’t feel comfortable. 

“Well, there was one little thing.  I had brought some Fender amplifiers that I own.  I brought them to Congo because I thought this was going to make a sound great.  That's what they needed to make the sound good, also for guitar music.  And of course, the leader of the band, when he saw the big amplifier, he said, ‘I want to play through this, because I'm the leader and it's the biggest amplifier.’  And it was relatively new, and looks more impressive than the equipment they were used to.  And of course, I didn't like the idea.  Because when you play an electric instrument, half of the instrument is the amplifier.  So if you play through another amplifier, you don't find your sound easily.  You are lost.  But I agreed.  I said, ‘Okay, you want to play through this one.  Play through this one.’  The sound was cleaner.  But I could see that nobody was really satisfied, because nobody was smiling.  Even the tempo was slowing down, which is really unusual in Congo.  In that country, they all tend to speed up a bit, gradually. 

“So what I did was, without telling him, I just put a distortion pedal between the instrument and the amplifier, just to see.  Not something very outrageous, but just some more buzz.  And suddenly, a big smile across his face, and everybody is really glad.  And so he started playing.  It sounded more like what he used to do.  And I said, ‘Okay, let's try both, my amplifier and your amplifier.’  And he said, ‘That's even better.’  So he got the best of both worlds.  And then, I had his trust.  He understood that I understood what he was trying to do, and we bypassed power game.  The prestige game commanded him to use the biggest amplifier.  But the musicality commanded him to use what he used to.  Since I had 16 tracks, I had a track for each instrument.  So for the mix, we went together to the hotel room, and I showed them:  ‘This is your sound, and this other track is also your sound, but different.  And his third track is your sound mixed with the whole thing.  So you see, we can change the balance as you like.  So what do you think?’ 

“‘Oh, I like this one better.’  Everybody agreed that the sound of the bass was not very good.  This was the basesamplifier I had used for the Kasai All Stars tour.  And actually, I had sent it by boat one year earlier, and they had used it for year, and had changed the speaker two times, so it sounded really like shit.  So they asked me, ‘Can you fix something with the computer, with the sound?’  So okay, I plugged in a bass double and an equalizer.  ‘What about this?  This?  This?’  Suddenly, ‘Yes, this!’  The sound is a kind of giant, reggae, woof-woof-woof sound!  I said, ‘Wow.  You sure?  I mean, this is not really like it sounds onstage, is it?’ 

“‘Never mind.  This is the sound we want on the record.’  Then we kind of rebuilt the whole mix around this big sound, with their contribution and feedback.  And I was so excited by this, because as I told you there was no more cultural barrier.  I said, ‘Okay, this is a graphic equalizer, and you just move it around until you like it.’  This guy doesn't read, doesn't write, but he had no problem using the computer at all.  So we were bypassing all this ideological shit that stands in the way when a rich, white man wants to play games with a poor African.  You know?  I really enjoyed this.  That's one of the reasons why wanted to mix the album in Kinshasa.”

“For the Kasai All Stars recordings, I invited some of the musicians in the hotel room the same way.  The guitar player of Kasai All Stars was really fascinated by the computer, and the possibilities.  He came back one day with his guitar, knocked on my door and said, ‘I want to do some overdubs.’  I said, ‘That's really nice, but I have to leave for Europe soon, and I don't have money anymore.’  He said, ‘Never mind.  We’ll just do it for fun.’  And really, that's quite a statement in Congo.  You go and offer your work to a white man in a hotel room, and don't even ask for a beer in exchange.  That means you really care about the whole thing.  And I really was delighted about this.  Unfortunately, he died.  The album is dedicated to him.  His name is Gaby Nsapu Kilolo. 

“Also, another one from Kasai Allstars died.  Everyone dies so quick there.  It's amazing.  The other one is Chisopa wa Chisopa, who was a dancer from West Kasai, who was a great guy.  He knew the story of the music.  He was kind of an encyclopedic guy.  He knew the history of the Luba people, and the Luluwa People, and he was very energetic.  If you know Pepe Kalle, and the song “Paka Bouger,” one of the cries is, “Chisopa, Chisopa!”  That's the one.  Because he had a special dance that Empire Bakuba used to copy.  And he was a great guy.  So in three years time, two of the main guys of the group died.  And they were both in their forties.” 

Basokin

On Afropop Worldwide’s 1987 visit to Kinshasa, a highlight was our visit to the Bailo Bar, an out-of-the-way nightspot in Matonge, the city’s then-bustling, live music quarter.  Bailo Bar was a place where the group Basanga Kapia performed for an inside, ethnic Kasaian crowd.  There was a food table featuring an exotic spread of vegetables, raw and fried insects, and a bottle of Johnny Walker for the sales woman.  The group featured xylophones, singers, and an amazingly athletic boy dancer.  But the clincher was the buzzing ditumba drums, which created an unearthly trance atmosphere.  Our evening was interrupted by supposedly “government” meddlers, who were attracted by the flash of our cameras, and tried to hone in on the deal we had made with the group’s leader.  They pretended to be looking out for the musicians, although it seemed to us that they were just trying to exploit the situation.  That left a bad taste, but the recording we made, featured on the “Africa Acoustic” program, remains a field work favorite. 

In 2002, Banning Eyre returned to Kinshasa to cover the recording of Wendo Kolosoy’s album, Amba.  On a night off, he followed Lubangi Muniania’s suggestion and visited a bar called Porte Rouge.  There, a group called Basokin was performing what seemed an evolved version of the music heard years earlier at Bailo Bar.  This group had electric guitars in addition to the xylophones and ditumba drums.  No surprise that when Congotronics 2 appeared, there was Basokin.

Vincent Kenis:  “The Basokin song on Conotronics 2 was recorded at Porte Noir, which is a new place.  You can see them on the DVD too.  This was recorded in February, 2005  The electricity was so bad.  They had a generator.  But the generator went brrrrrp put-put-put-put, brrrrrp put-put-put-put.  And every time it goes brrrp, you have big spikes all over my tracks.  It broke my cans.  At that moment I said, ‘This is really unbearable.  Let's go and try and fix this motor.’  I took my flashlight, and I went out.  Five minutes after the cans went out.  And then I asked, ‘Does anybody have a torch?’  No.  ‘Okay, let's go with the match.’  ‘Are you crazy?  All this petrol around?  Everything is going to burn.’  ‘So okay, let's call it a day.’  And so I stopped the session.  I had to edit by hand at least 200 spikes from that song, “Mulume.” It was a very hectic recording session.”

The Future of Congotronics… 

Vincent Kenis:  “I have the proper album from Kasai All Stars yet to come.  I have another project with the group from Equator, another group in the classic style of Swede Swede, which I really enjoy.  You know, the fact that all these groups bringing the tradition in Kinshasa have almost disappeared from the public picture, I think that's one of the reasons why the modern music and Congo is less lively than before, because there's not much to borrow from anymore.  The Wenge school of music [Wera Son, J.B. Mpiana and others]—for me, is not really interesting.  For 10 years it's been like that.  Quarreling.  There is no musical idea.  It sounds like they're not so much concerned about music anymore.  I met Alain Makeba, who used to be the musical director of Wenge Musica when it was just one group.  I met him in the music shop in Brussels, and I said, ‘Okay, so why did you leave Wenge?’  And he said, ‘I'm interested in music, not football.’  In fact, when you hear all the comments in Kinshasa especially about the war between the two Wenges, and the crowds that this war draws.  I mean, one group plays at at one bar, and so the enemies, the ones who like the other group, come and fight, and it's getting just like a football match with supporters and hooligans. 

“What I hope will happen is….  There is a hip-hop scene starting in Kinshasa.  Actually, there are two hip-hop scenes starting in Kinshasa.  One is the people who have well-to-do parents and who are gravitating around the Centre Wallonie de Bruxelles, and the Centre Cultural Francais, who sing rap and French, who want to have as their role models French rappers and American rappers.  These people are not very interesting, because they just take the same backing tracks as the American rappers, just with different words on it.  Well, I don't know.  I'm not a big fan of sung poetry.  I don't listen very much to words.  I didn't even ask Konono to translate what they sang, because I come from a tradition where we used to listen to rock-and-roll.  We didn't understand word of English.  It was not about that for us.

“But there is a second hip-hop scene which is going on in very poor neighborhoods, and it's just out of frustration.  They don't even have a guitar, not even a wooden guitar, not even a drum.  They just hit on a beer case and plastic with a spray can fall of little stones.  They make up their raps.  You know the Human Beat Box?  They pretend they have microphones.  They don't have microphones.  And it's a completely fantasmatic hip hop scene.  They don't even get the occasion to hear so much hip-hop.  This is really more creative, and so what I think the success of groups like Konono will suggest to these people is the sound that makes Konono unique and successful in Europe and the States, they have it at hand, and they just have to make some amplifiers themselves, and develop a sound, try to collaborate with Konono type musicians, and integrate this into a unique form of hip-hop that can be generated only there.  This might start something.  If it starts, I'll be there to listen, maybe eventually to produce it.  I would be really excited if it did happen. 

First published: www.afropop.org