Compared to what the situation was 6-7 years ago, there are very few shops remaining online selling a wide selection of Congolese titles, especially older releases. Villageafro was one shop like that, serving the needs of fans through years until they closed down sometime around summer this year. Good news to the lovers of the genre: they rebranded their store, and came back online with a new site not very long ago. I have already tested them, and I received what I ordered, the price of a CD that turned out not to be in stock was refunded automatically on the shipment of the rest.
I managed to spend a week with the band: Lokito Ya Congo in the UK. I created a summary of one of the concerts I participated in. If you are interested in how Congolese Music is doing in the UK, check it out!
I have just noticed Roga played the old hit of Pamelo Mounka recently.
What is your opinion?
Mine: as far as the show is concerned, it is fine. I regret however, that from the fine Kiri Kiri style rumba they created a Salsa like track. In the original track the emphasis is on the large space of the guitar reverb and the delay. I don't like they kind a marginalized that. So, this kind of interpretation that they did is not as fine for me as like what Zaiko did with their old songs along the years. Like with Ben Betito. That song also has an old and a new version, but there the original is soukous, and the second one also. Not like that the first version was soukous, and the second became Salsa or Coupe decale.
I am a big fan of old artistic photographs from Africa. During the years I collected quite many. I decided to upload them somewhere to put them on display for others to see, too, as these photos give an insight into an aspect of African life that might have remained hidden to most foreigners. To me they are quite interesting and even surprising. They show a side of the everydays of the continent that may be unknown to many of us, who live elsewhere. For those who live there, seeing these photos may feel nostalgic.
We often raise our voice recently for the shortness of sebens on albums, so here is the counter example, a cool seben through 16 minutes! This single of Renato Mondele was recorded in 2008, and he played the themes appearing in it during his tour in Congo around that time. It wasn't marketed widely when released, I have to say unfortunately. But now it can take its "seat" among other great sebens on Youtube.
Dany Engobo is ready with his new DVD, I assume it will be available in shops soon:
Well, what could I say, maybe this will be the number one release for me for this year. Unfortunately as you can hear there will be some electro-techno style tracks on this release (probably for marketing reasons), but the Congolese type tunes are really awesome. The solos are great, the mixing is satisfying, the solo guitar is the loudest, as it should be. In this regard this DVD will be a great example that should be followed by other bands, too, as recently on many other releases the solo guitar is quite silent.
I love almost every past release of Dany, I am glad that in these days when either good solos are so few or the mixing has problems on CD's, Dany could bring back something from the past that I really missed. Would love to see more DVD's like that.
So all in all: great sound engineering, great solos, and as usual in his case: great dancers, what more would you want?
I managed to organize a concert for Renato Mondele and his band: Lokito Ya Congo last Friday. Mboka Liya, the former Wenge Musica guitarist was playing the solo. I had to take care of the mixer most of the time, but I managed to capture some good moments on video. Check it here how Congolese Music is doing in London:
Recently I am practicing playing the piano a lot. I came to like the song: 'Zero' from Roga Roga's new album. I totally fell in love with its pleasing melody, and I wondered how it would sound on a piano. I rearranged it adding a secondary rythm to the main melody. When I recorded it, I was quite satisfied with how it blended with the vocals, so I decided to upload it. I don't intend to do any revolutionary with this, but some might find it interesting how such melodies can be played on different instruments. It was a chellenge to imitate the typical rumba guitar embellishments on piano keys, but I think I did a good job. Decide yourself whether I am right or not:
To make sure your Soundcloud songs will display correctly here, follow these steps when you want to post them in this forum:
1. Select 'Share' below the Soundcloud player:
2. Stay in the 'Share' panel, and copy the link that is displayed:
3. Click the Soundcloud buttons when posting here in the forum, and insert the link you have just copied between the Soundcloud BB Codes: [ soundcloud ]HERE[ /soundcloud ]
There are two buttons, one is for inserting a single track, the button that has 'Set' written on it is for inserting playlists. Inserting playlists must be done the same way.
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