It is hard to over state the
influence that the popular music of Congo/Zaire, from rumba to soukous, has had
on modern African culture. Singers and
bands from Cote d’Ivoire to Kenya not to mention Paris and Brussels have all
incorporated its fluid high-on-the-neck guitar loops and rapid fire rhythms
into their own musical forms to create one of the most recognizable and
addictive sounds in world music.
And within the star studded
universe of Congolese rumba/soukous no two diadems shone brighter
than Grand Kalle (Joseph Kabasele)
and Franco (Francois Luambo Makiadi). Kabasele
was the great master who through his band African Jazz (arguably the
first full time professional band in Africa) set 1950s and 60s Central Africa
afire with his Cuban influenced rumba
dance tunes. Like many great musical adventurers before and after, Grand Kalle’s band was the nursery and
incubator of several waves of mighty musicians, including the guitarists Franco and Dr. Nico and singers Tabu
Ley Rochereau and Pepe Kalle.
Franco was
a genius who could not be constrained by playing for others. In 1955 he left African Jazz to start a regular gig at
the OK Bar in Leopoldville (Kinshasa). Soon his band, with its electric guitar
wizardry and smooth vocals of Vicky
Longomba, became known as OK Jazz
and was African Jazz’s main
rival. (Kabasele eventually formed a record label which recorded OK Jazz and exposed Franco to the non-African world.)
Like African Jazz, OK Jazz, which
in 1956 was renamed le Tout Pouissant Orchestre Kinois (the All-Powerful Kinshasa Orchestra), was in its prime a
mighty generator of talent. Jean Serge Essous, Mose Fan Fan, Sam
Mangwana, Papa Noel and Madilu
(to mention but a handful) all went on to stellar careers in their own right
after learning their trade with ‘Grand
Maitre’ Franco and TPOK Jazz.
Tonight’s
post highlights the debut solo albums of two of Grand Kalle’s and Grand
Maitre’s musical sons. Pepe Kalle, popularly known as la Bombe Atomique struck a deal with the most celebrated Congo
singer of the day, Joseph Kabasele, Le
Grand Kalle. In return for working around Kabasele's place, young Pepe
got a place to stay, and singing lessons. Up to that time, the boy had been
singing hymns in Catholic school, an experience he used to say explained the
melancholy character of his angelic voice. But it was the experience with Kabasele that gave him his sense of
melody, and prepared him to become one of the most beloved singers Congo music
has ever produced.
Kalle
began his career in the 70s group Bella
Bella, which also served as proving ground for Nyboma and for Kanda Bongo
Man. Kalle and Nyboma continued to harmonize their
rich voices from time to time for years to come. But as the rocking,
youth-oriented soukous sound began to take over in Kinshasa, Kalle formed the band that he would
lead for the rest of his life. Empire
Bakuba took its name from a Congolese warrior tribe, and it pointedly
incorporated rootsy rhythms from the interior, sounds that had long been
sidelined by popular rumba. At the
same time, Empire Bakuba was as
hard-driving a soukous band as you'll find, with the inimitable Doris on lead guitar, and a surreal
frontline that juxtaposed the elephantine Kalle
(300 lbs and 6’3” of pure love) with a dancing dwarf named Emauro.
Empire Bakuba remained active and relatively stable during years of tremendous
turbulence in Congolese music, and Congolese life. At a performance in Harare,
just months before Kalle died of a
sudden heart attack, the band had sprawled to the size of an orchestra. Emuaro, who passed away early in the
1990s, had been replaced by three Pygmee dancers, and the performance had the
feel of a musical circus. Empire Bakuba
had clearly peaked by then, but there was no denying the sense of community the
band generated. (http://www.afropop.org/explore/artist_info/ID/229/Pepe%20Kalle/)
Track Listing:
01
Moyibi
02 Amour Perdu
03 Eve Matoko
04 Nina
05 Likambo
06 Prés du Coeu
07 Reviens Alima
08 Pamelo Okemena Ngambo
09 Tika Makanasi
With a
husky tenor blessed with a distinctively taught, tremulous vibrato, and the
trademark chuckle that peppered his later work, the Congolese singer known as Madilu System was the brightest vocal
talent of the legendary TPOK Jazz
during his mid-1980s heyday. Arguably the most influential African band of the
second half of the 20th century, TPOK
Jazz were led by "Le Grand
Maître" Luambo Makiadi "Franco", the formidable guitarist,
singer and composer who spearheaded the craze for rumba Congolaise,
which dominated African popular music in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
At
their peak, le Tout Pouissant Orchestre
Kinois ("the All-Powerful Kinshasa Orchestra") really justified
their grandiose name; they numbered around 40 musicians, half of whom would
stay in Kinshasa holding sway at one of two venues Franco owned, while the other half went on tour – each with ranks
of horns, guitars and vocalists.
As one
of their several featured singers at the time, Madilu System made his mark on a series of stunning vocal duets
with Franco, most notably the epic
quarter-hour-long "Mario"
(1985), their biggest hit ever. Following Franco's
death in 1989, Madilu continued to
lead TPOK Jazz until its eventual
dissolution in 1993, after which he pursued a moderately successful solo career
in Europe, finally achieving recognition as "Le fils spirituel de Luambo
Makiadi Franco" ("Franco's spiritual heir").
He was
born Jean de Dieu Makiese in 1952, in
Léopoldville, the capital of the Belgian Congo, later Zaire (and now the
Democratic Republic of Congo). During the late 1960s, when Jean came of age, the city had a vibrant and highly competitive
music scene. In 1969, he joined a rumba band called Symba, and spent the next few years honing his vocal skills in Papa Noël's band Bamboula, Festival des
Maquisards (with Sam Mangwana)
and Fiesta Popular.
In
1973, newly christened "Bialu"
under President Mobutu's
"authenticité" programme, Madilu
formed the band Bakuba Mayopi along
with the guitarist Yossa Taluki and
a singer called Pirès –
"Mayopi" being a nonsense word derived from the first two letters of
each of their names. Though never exactly major players, they scored a
significant hit with the song "Pamba-Pamba"
in 1976, after which Bialu left,
forming his own group with Soki Vangu,
which they called Orchestre Pamba-Pamba.
However, they met with no success, and Bialu
spent the last two years of the 1970s in relative obscurity as a member of Tabu Ley's band Afrisa.
In the
wake of a humiliating career low-point, which saw him abandoned at Kinshasa's
Ndjili airport as Tabu Ley and his
entourage jetted off to Europe, Bialu
joined Afrisa's main rival, TPOK Jazz in April 1980, and his luck
soon turned. He became the first member of the band to be invited to introduce
himself in the course of a song, trading verses and harmonising with Franco over the 18 minutes of the
slow-burning classic "Non",
which took up the whole side of the 1983 album Chez Fabrice A Bruxelles.
The
following year, he cemented his position as their rising star on "Tu Vois?" (popularly known as "Mamou"), a conversational
duet focusing on sexual mores, typical of Franco's
oeuvre at the time. The upbeat "Pesa
position na yo" ("State your position") and "Makambo ezali bourreau" were other
1984 hits featuring Bialu. TPOK also visited the US and the UK
that year, with Bialu fronting the
band at their gig at the Hammersmith Palais. In a 2003 interview, he claimed
that it was during this time that Franco
nicknamed him "Système"
(or "System," as he came to be known outside Francophone Africa),
explaining that the two had an almost father-and-son relationship, and that Franco had empowered him to lead the
band in his absence.
With backing
by Franco's hypnotic, cascading
guitar riff, "Mario" was a
soap opera-like narrative about a gigolo, which juxtaposed Franco's gruff spoken-word exhortations with Bialu's precise singing. It made him the group's most popular
singer with the public, both in Zaire and on their frequent tours to other
African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. "La Vie des Hommes" (1986) continued
his purple patch and the snappy "Tala
merci bapesaka na mbua" from the same year showed that he could
effortlessly go it alone with no need of Franco
as a duet partner.
Franco's death in 1989 – most probably from an
Aids-related condition – was a body blow from which TPOK Jazz never recovered, although they continued to perform to
considerable acclaim, appearing in London the same year. Under pressure from Franco's family to relinquish the name,
the poet Simaro formed Bana OK ("Children of OK
Jazz") in Kinshasa at the start of 1994, taking most members of TPOK Jazz with him – except Madilu System, who resolved to start a
solo career.
Basing
himself in Geneva, (he had married a Swiss woman in 1985 under controversial
circumstances) Madilu System divided
his time between there, Paris and Kinshasa, working mostly with expatriot
Congolese musicians to perpetuate Franco's
classic "odemba" style of rumba on a series of solo albums, backed
variously by the bands Multi-Système, OK
Système and Tout Puissant Système.
These began in 1994 with the zouk-flavoured Sans Commentaire. Subsequent
solo releases included Album '95 (1995), L'eau (1999), Pouvoir
(2000), Tenant du Titre (2003), Bonheur (2004) and most recently Le
Bonne Humeur (2007). (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/madilu-system-403130.html)
Track Listing:
01
Ya Jean
02 Pie Mboyo
03 Autoroute
04 Biya
05 Apula
06 Blessure d'Amour
07 Paradiso
08 Nzele
09 Fluer du Ciel
10 Beau Souvenir
