Congo was the place to be in the late 1940s. On both sides of the Congo River, in Leopoldville (later renamed as Kinshasa) and Brazzaville, Congolese musicians began to develop a distinctive popular music based on their own tribal rhythms, Cuban music (popular at the time throughout Central and Western Africa), and Western jazz and pop. The music they developed was called rumba and in the following decades it would mature into Africa’s most potent dance music, spawning some of the greatest big bands and orchestras the continent has known.
Papa Wemba, one of Congo's biggest stars in the 1980s.
The post World War II boom brought imported records to the Congo, electricity and recording technology (Greek entrepreneurs would play a key role) to the area. The Congo region began to develop a busy recording industry, the second in Sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa. With independence in 1960, the first great Congolese band Africa Jazz set everyone dancing with Independence Cha Cha Cha.
Into the 60s, bands like Franco’s OK Jazz (founded in 1956) began to drop the Western influences of pop and R&B as they developed a distinctive Congolese sound. Hundreds of similar dance bands emerged, led by Franco and his great rival Tabu Ley Rochereau.
By the 1970s, the full-on Congolese sound featured huge orchestras with banks of intertwined guitars, backing singers, animateurs (similar to an MC), dancers, a brass section, percussion and in Franco’s case in the early 70s, as many as 50 people on stage. Congolese rumba became rumba rock, and it went across Africa like a bushfire; only the dance bands of West Africa could rival the Congolese bands but their music was never as influential.
Franco was one of the biggest stars in Africa during this period.
I was reminded of the era’s history after reading the liner notes of an excellent double vinyl LP of Congolese music from the 1970s called African Pearls: Congo 70 Rumba Rock, another great production from the late Ibrahima Sylla’s label Syllart Productions, released in 2009. The album, which is also available in CD (with more tracks), is part of a series under the African Pearls title, which also includes releases on West African dance bands.
The album begins with the guitar sorcerer himself, Franco, on Boma L’Heure, on which his playing is described as “elegant and sparkling like a Sunday parade in a big city”. His rumba sound has sweetness that emerges from the mesmerising guitars and the vocal harmonies of the singers. Rochereau also features on his last major hit, Maze, which also has a sublime sebene, the second part of a typical 70s rumba rock song for which the tempo is cranked up and the dancing begins; he is credited with this key innovation.
Newcomers at that time like Papa Wemba, who became Congo’s biggest star after Franco’s passing in 1987 and is featured on the lilting Zonga Zonga, would ditch the slow intro of typical rumba songs and go straight to the sebene. He went on to found the band that did just that, Zaiko Langa Langa, who would rip up the rumba rule book in the 1980s.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. So before you head off into the small combo era of the 1980s and 1990s or the ndambolo craze later, spend a little time with some of the names and their hits on this fine release. Just to name a few: Dr Nico, whose subtle understated guitar style was the perfect foil for the young Rochereau (as on his big hit Tu M’as Decu Chouchou), Empire Bakuba (their 1971 megahit Nazoki is one of the best grooves on the compilation) and Trio Madjesi’s Pan-African hit Sex Madjesi.
By the late 1970s, with the then Zaire’s economy struggling and politics in crisis, the music industry went into decline. Many musicians left for other parts of Africa — taking their music with them and invigorating music in places like Tanzania and Kenya — or Europe. The advent of keyboards replaced brass sections and the huge dance bands slowly faded away, as smaller combos took over. But the era produced, in my view, some of the greatest popular dance music the world has ever seen.
This brilliant compilation “showcases a time”, say the liner notes, “when tough musicianship, fierce competition, great singers, and talented bandleaders from both sides of the Congo River paved the way for a golden era of Congolese music”. Highly recommended.
This column can be contacted at: clewley.john@gmail.com
