I'm shocked. This is not normal.

I think that those discs they were selling at Chateaux Rouge were of the black market  so that their label wouldn't pay taxes.

 yeah sounds quite strange,but the good thing for me it goes to show how sales and views can mean nothing,all those album were listened to by millions of people around the world

This is very inaccurate; it’s not capturing global sales data

I think that its time for Congolese bandleaders to get united to stand up for their rights in DR Congo. That all those radiostations, tv-channels, nigthclubs, restaurants in Kinshasa, Kongo Central, Kivu, Katanga, Kasai, Province Oriental and Bandundu have to pay taxes , that the governement comes with a law that protect artists against piracy and that they arrest all those Chinese, Indian and Libanese people who doing it (selling albums everywhere for $1). If that happens they have just to sell 1 million copies (Congo has more than 83 millions inhabitants) to become multi-millionaires. They have not be forced to make 30 songs, live on matolo and mabanga, having to do black business or touring months long in Europe to survive. Also it will allow artists living in Kisangani, Lubumbashi, Goma, Bukavu, Kananga and Matadi to live well without being known in Kinshasa. If this all don't happen then they will have a big problem in the future. Imagine if the concert-ban stays until 2030 or that World War III comes in Europe, bako suka wapi? They have to fix those problem and stop those stupid wars.

This is very inaccurate; it’s not capturing global sales data

SNEP only show the sales made in France because they are an inter-professional organisation that protects the interests of the French record industry. So they don't have any interest to show those of rest of the world.

Papa Wemba (RIP) was right

all those album were listened to by millions of people around the world

Piracy man. 2000s Congolese artists saw piracy in massive production all over the world. Even legit record stores were selling them. Before youtube and streaming those artists were getting raped.

Very misleading.

Those are the numbers for legal sales in France.

Globally, if you take legal and illegal sales into account, those albums sold hundreds of thousands, even millions.

Generally, this obsession with sales in France is very stupid.

I think that its time for Congolese bandleaders to get united to stand up for their rights in DR Congo. That all those radiostations, tv-channels, nigthclubs, restaurants in Kinshasa, Kongo Central, Kivu, Katanga, Kasai, Province Oriental and Bandundu have to pay taxes , that the governement comes with a law that protect artists against piracy and that they arrest all those Chinese, Indian and Libanese people who doing it (selling albums everywhere for $1). If that happens they have just to sell 1 million copies (Congo has more than 83 millions inhabitants) to become multi-millionaires. They have not be forced to make 30 songs, live on matolo and mabanga, having to do black business or touring months long in Europe to survive. Also it will allow artists living in Kisangani, Lubumbashi, Goma, Bukavu, Kananga and Matadi to live well without being known in Kinshasa. If this all don't happen then they will have a big problem in the future. Imagine if the concert-ban stays until 2030 or that World War III comes in Europe, bako suka wapi? They have to fix those problem and stop those stupid wars.

Musicians don't make money by selling music anymore, even in the West. It's an old model. And it will get worse. It's too easy now to share music for free. So the majors and the distributors squeeze all the money.

Musicians make money thru their shows. That's why old musicians like Johnny Haliday were still touring before their death. That's how they make money. 

Very misleading.

Those are the numbers for legal sales in France.

Globally, if you take legal and illegal sales into account, those albums sold hundreds of thousands, even millions.

Generally, this obsession with sales in France is very stupid.

Yes, France is a tiny record sales market, comparatively speaking

Very misleading.

Those are the numbers for legal sales in France.

Globally, if you take legal and illegal sales into account, those albums sold hundreds of thousands, even millions.

Generally, this obsession with sales in France is very stupid.

Until we as Congolese will think as colonized peoe it will be like that. Until we gonna give our babies French names instead of Congolese ones and until we will value a person on how much good french he speaks nothing will change. Even this whole Bercy obsession of artists and France obsession with Congolese artists it is very stupid and colonized mind like

Aint « bord ezanga kombo » certified gold in france ? (50k cds sold)

Very misleading.

Those are the numbers for legal sales in France.

Globally, if you take legal and illegal sales into account, those albums sold hundreds of thousands, even millions.

Generally, this obsession with sales in France is very stupid.

Until we as Congolese will think as colonized peoe it will be like that. Until we gonna give our babies French names instead of Congolese ones and until we will value a person on how much good french he speaks nothing will change. Even this whole Bercy obsession of artists and France obsession with Congolese artists it is very stupid and colonized mind like

Its doesn't have something to do with having a colonized mind. Those stuff about album sales in Dr Congo doesn't exist anymore since the big crisis made by the MPR-regime, so they switched it to Europe where there is a big community since the mid '90s. Back in the 60s and 70s Congolese artists used often to brag about the sales they made in DR Congo, artists like Lutumba Simaro and Evoloko Lay receiving gold records from Soneca. Since 1991 they don't have those cd/disc facotries in Kinshasa, also those discs they sold are in reality piracy cds, because they pay zero tax to Socoda/Soneca and the governement. So those albums sales don't count and the artists don't really make alot of money from the albums they sell in Kinshasa, most albums don't even arrive in other cities (except those made by Libanese, Chinese and Indian pople) .They also talk often about the album sales they made in France, because Congolese artists used to brag/lie about having received a gold record in France which wasn't true with other artists also wanted to do the same thing and falling in the same trap. Starting then also to lie to the public and creating confusion by saying that they received a gold record because of the albums they sold around the world while every country has his own music recording certification (SABAM for Belgium, Sacem/Snep for France, IRAA for USA, etc.). The French media exposed Papa Wemba with that when he got arrested, mocking him that he only sold 6.000 copies for Bakala Dia Kuba in France while it was a big succes in the Congolese community of France. Zacharie Bababaswe made back in 2003 a whole article about those albums sales and in 1999 released a VHS on the market where he visited with King Kester Emeneya SACEM to look if there was a Congolese artist who received a gold record in France.



Also you don't have mythic musichalls in Kinshasa. We had the famous Cine Palladium where Papa Wemba, Tabu Ley, Franco Luambo Makiadi and Abeti Masikini gave memorable shows, but it got abandoned in the 80s. They tried to renovate it in 1996, changing the name into Cinemax, but the governement sold it to Libanese businessmen in 2004 who broke it down. The obession with Bercy started after that Koffi Olomide there. Before 1999 nobody outside France knew even the existence of Bercy. It started to get know when Koffi started to promote his show after just having released Droit de Veto on the market.

It was not that they wanted to look like white people, it was that they saw it as victory for the African diaspora living in Europe for having filled the biggest musichall of Paris without being native inhabitants and feeling themselves not respected. But it went quickly wrong because other Congolese artists wanted then to prove that they were more popular then the other one by having a bigger crowd at Bercy and those who performed before them trying to sabote those shows (the Congolese mentality, not wanted to accept other succes). The same thing happened in Congo itself with Stade des Martyrs.

Aint « bord ezanga kombo » certified gold in france ? (50k cds sold)

I remember going to a shop in Paris one week after the release of BEK. With the guy selling B.E.K. saying to people that he had two versions. The cheap one (being piracy version made by himself) being the half of the price and the original one (having the booklet) and the most people ending up by buying the cheap one. The same for the first volume of BEK-videoclips.