They had Africa & the French West Indies in their hands and were fighting the legendary band Kassav in nightclubs. I wonder if they wouldn't lose their fans in Kinshasa and Zaire by doing commerical music. Or if Sony BMG would allow Nyoka Longo, Bimi Ombale and Dindo Yogo to do solo-projects outside the contract without the name "Zaiko", just to stay in touch with the people in Kinshasa. Doing commercial music was dangerous for Congolese artists. Look what it did to King Kester Emeneya. Papa Wemba was lucky because he was leaning on Stino & Reddy and years later also doing rumba-albums next to it.
Zaiko itself ended up by doing world-music with the album "Backline Lesson One" in 1997 but it was not a big succes. Also it was not the same Zaiko like the 1980s which was a dream-team. The Zaiko of mid-90s started to be centered around Nyoka Longo. Him being put big in album-covers. Today many foreign people think that Nyoka Longo's name is Zaiko. I saw a former Zaiko-fanatic being mad that when BOZAR made a poster for Zaiko's 50th anniversary in Brussels, Nyoka Longo being painted and him saying that it was a disrespect towards Mbuta Matima, Zamuangana, Bimi Ombale, Meridjo Belobi, Oncle Bapius, Likinga, Dindo Yogo, etc. who all contributed to Zaiko's succes.
