There are several musical powerhouses in Sub-Saharan Africa, the rich musical scene of Mali and Sénégal, the coupé décalé in Ivory Coast, moving bodies in West Africa and on dancefloors all over the continent, Ghanaen Highlife, afrofunk and nija music from Nigeria, the bikutsi rythms of Cameroon, Ethiopian jazz, South Africa’s kwaito, house and isicathamya or Angolan kizomba and kuduro. Another cradle lies in Central Africa’s DRC with its rhythms of ndombolo and rumba.

“Music from the Congo is often touted as ‘Africa’s most influential pop music’ … and the Congo’s ‘richest and most distinctive gift to the continent’. The ones to put the former Zaire on the musical map were artists like Wendo Kolosoy, Grand Kallé and African Jazz, Tabu Ley, Docteur Nico, Franco and O.K. Jazz or Zaiko Langa Langa. Yet today the country is mostly known for armed conflict, rape, minerals, mountain gorillas, tropical rainforest and a big river.

The Congo river has been a metaphor for many things (it might even match the “heart of darkness” metaphor in its overuse). Beyond the mere fact that it swallows up the other waterways in Central Africa, transporting people, goods and ideas from the interior to the Atlantic Ocean, passing through Kinshasa, kin la belle. The city’s name evokes projections of mysterious locations and exotic encounters, which despite its romanticism is part of the truth. However, foremost it is about throbbing beats, splendid colors, sweet melodies, virtuous drums, elegant voices, in all their un/refinedness.

Music is an integral part of kinois life, accompanying every day of survival, both a seductive combo of melancholy and energy and a mediating force for new ways of popular consciousness. “Through the words and gestures of popular musicians, and despite the growing sense of desperate insecurity, it may be argued that generations of young people in Kinshasa have looked to popular music as an opportunity to shine.”

Melodies and rhythms melt into a soundtrack of people’s lives, referencing the sounds and stories of the villages, newly forged in the sweat and steam of the city’s hustle, the kin mode of life, crude, rude yet elegant, and expressing the aspiration to be part of the global picture.

This is kinois - Congolese, urban reality - adding up to the larger cosmos. From the urban jungle, from the paths and streets, from the heart of Africa, so rude and flashy, it tingles the ears late at night, early in the morning.

The challenging context of the Congo might explain why contemporary Congolese urban music found it difficult to get known outside the country. Similarly, access to the Congo is not the easiest, and operating in Kinshasa requires patience, money, steadfast optimism and much more stamina. Once one manages to get inside the country, inhaling the smell of charcoal fires heating up the food for millions of people in the quartiers of Kinshasa, a unique cosmos emerges.

Shaped by concepts of survival such as la débrouillardise and nakobeta coop, it brings out the kinois spirit of standing one’s ground and imposing oneself. But not just anyhow. But in style! No matter open sewage pipes that form little Congo rivers crossing through residential areas, overloaded public transport, walking on dusty roads inhaling exhaust smokes and staying connected despite the omni-occurring power cuts.

It takes effort, energy and commitment to maintain composure in a setting as such. And the music reflects this: “There is something about the lyrics of popular music that echoes Kinshasa’s long-standing tradition of débrouillardise… which must be seen more as an expression of people’s dignity than of their survival instinct.” The often-quoted creativity is a means for the purpose to assert one’s style and freedom – into life’s face. It is not an end but the modus operandi.

Thus, be aware of reveling in a glorification and praising of how such creativity is just the most marvellous thing when all the poor people are so poor and desperate: it is about agency, not stylisation or victimisation. Creativity in expression and behaviour is a tool in the iterative identity construction process that serves people to express their claim to attention and dignity, appropriating and mirroring the context around them.

With Languila Kinshasa develops its own language, full with rich metaphors and concepts. One relates to the plastic bag, an integral part in anyone’s pocket; called “on ne se jamais” because you never know what may cross your way to be carried back home to Palestine, a play on sound of mon palais, my palace.

Several terms make reference to specific characters, such as Maringa, Mario (in a reminiscence to Franco’s famous song), Sapeur or Matolo. Particularly the latter two are all about acting out and spreading style. The Matolo talks his head in and out of the sling, he is the master of word twisting, to shine and to get by; sweet talking the ladies to get some, luring the traffic police to avoid an arbitrary fine, chit chatting in the streets for a free drink.

But to make a statement, one does not rely on words. Introducing the Sapeur. In a way the Congolese version of Punk, this style of protesting against the political system and morals through clothes and fashion originated from the time of Mobutu, as a style of flying the flag. Today, one can see the Sapeur strolling down the Boulevard de 30 Juin, showing off the latest fashion, combining famous brands with local styles and fancy accessories, making the case for elegance.

Kinois music expresses this attitude with its vibe and multifariousness and the topics dealt with in Kinois music are just as broad and colourful. “The words of popular music in Kinshasa reflect the hardships of life in an economy of crisis. They address the questions of betrayal, financial insecurity, social inequality, and endemic poverty, but they do so primarily through an idiom of romantic love and release.”

So do the musicians on this compilation. From an angry hymn to the city to comments on social relations, educative for the kids, reflecting on marriage, and the ever-occurring troublemaker money. Some stories and themes are reminiscent of the village, the elephant hunt, the way to the river to fetch water. Football as one of the social events that brings everybody together in the bars and public places to cheers for their team and getting drunk with excitement. Celebrating the legendary kinois capabilities to raise the roof and party all night and the next morning. In general, the importance of the family, the suffering through the war and life as it is, tough and rough. And of course, the role of women, their beauty, as dreams of desire, hidden affairs, ostentatious flirting, and real life forcing many to prostitute and infect themselves.

TONGOSA illustrates the continuous flow of the bright dark night and deep early morning. Notions of time and space intersect constantly, daylight becoming nightlight in an ordinary day of life of a kinois. It is a collage of sound, from the first cry of the roster in the early morning, to the roaring of engines in the traffic jam to work, the scuffling of feet, the whistling of street vendors, chit chat of traffic cops, proclamations from street preachers, hollers from the mamas in the market, lamenting at the coffins of the dead, cheering and screaming in laughter, moaning of sweating bodies.

That’s the Kinshasa sound. The story of the Sapeur blends with the one of the Matolo, the kola nut vendor, the 207 chauffeur, the preacher, the shegue streetkids, the traffic cop, politician, night crawler and ambianceurs, prostitutes, business men, kulunna bandits, instrument builders, the newly arriving, the recently returning, sharing a moment of being stuck in the kinois traffic jam, fleeing a tropical downpour, during a car breakdown along the road, at beach ngobila waiting for the ferry to Brazza, at Rond Point Victoire to hit the bars, at the terasses from Bandal at Mama Colonel to Bonne Marché. Inspired by Kinshasa, Kin la belle, Kin la poubelle, a cradle of wisdom and a bed of sin.

2015 - TONGOSA on Radio Mukambo:
www.mukambo.be/RadioMukambo.shtml
#198: Likula, TP Kimvuka, Tension 5
#199: Mokili Mokambo
#214: TP Kimvuka

April 2016 - TONGOSA on Citoyens du Monde:
citoyensdumondepodcast.tumblr.com/post/142310020554/003-kinshasa-république-démocratique-du-congo