I dont why but someone may tell us

Cause Tchacho was always not Tojour Leader.

In those circumstances where they wanted to become Tojour Leader for instance Monde Arab Album they disappointed so much.

Not really, it's more lack of initiative. Everyone is comfortable using the same formula for rhumba, génériques, clips, mabanga style. Plus the donors are happy with the status quo for the most part


Monde Arabe always gets the blame, but have you guys listened to Karmapa's first album? The one Tabu Ley proclaim Karmapa "Le Prince de la Rhumba"?

I wish the articles of music journalists Bolowa Bonzakwa (RIP) and Manda Tchebwa from the late 80's - early 90's were online. They were regularly saying that the excessiveness of everything that went on until the early 2000's would in-turn cause a demise. Artists would loose their identities, polemics would get worse, mabanga would take over, etc.

Of course we were too busy dancing to listen.

I was sooo dissapointed when Monde Arabe  came out we were not used to that format. With rumbas taking over sebenes.

It's been more than 12 years that style exists and I tried to listen to every recent releases but I gotta admit I don't like what our music has become.

Just to be clear I am not a rumba hater.I know our music is not all about sebene at the end of every track. But our music become too soft it lacks punch. It doesn't speak to me anymore.

Now they all put their energy to do long,powerful generique and the rest is lame.

That's my own opinion people have the rights to have their own taste if some people like this rumbas trend that's their own right and I have no problem with that.

Yeah the biggest change for me is that even the rare sebene songs done on albums are nowhere near as good as micko,augustine,let alone the kalayi boeing and co so its quickly forgotten while in the albums of early 2000's the rumbas actually "benefitted" from sebene songs,you knew that if it happened that 3 rumbas was on albums all 3 became classic
now it has become  one classic mixed with good and average songs

Exactly it's the case for songs like Maria,Washington,Blandine,Omba the rumbas back then were catchy and not as soft as it is today.

Tchipp Monde Arabe as nothing to do with it. Because after that there were many albums released with sebene. It's like Matebu said a lack of initiative and donors. If everybody started with releasing albums full with Rumba's then it's for two reasons. reason 1, people fed up were fed of hearing albums full with sebene songs wherein the lyrics of songs are not right with them singing just names or doing vocals who had nothing to with the theme of the song.



from 8:33 min Emeneya is criticizing them.

reason 2 is the succes of the albums "Droit Chemin" & "Sens Interdite" with ex'collegues of Ferre & Fally and youngsters dreaming to become solo artists like Fally & Ferre and releasing successful solo albums, instead of forming shoot-offs bands (where we were used to since the start of Congolese music from African Fiesta till Les Marquis) and starting to sing about sexual stuff like Fally in Orgasy. So after that everybody from G5 followed their example Didier Lacoste, Soleil Wanga, Bouro Mpela, etc. And the old guard JB, Werrason & Koffi wanting to prove them a point, since they were not happy the way Fally & Ferre dominated them in 2007. With Koffi releasing BEK to prove Fally that he was still the patron, which was a huge succes, but at the same time alot of people complaining about the sexual stuff Koffi was singing in many songs. JB Mpiana & Werrason preparing Deplick, Fabregas, Djino to fight the G5 phenomenon with songs like Le Representant & Zadio Kongolo getting huge succes with sebene songs being outdating. Calling that "miziki ya manzanza", "miziki ya bana mike" &  "miziki ya makelelele" (music of children, noisy music, etc.).




With people paying more attention on rumba's in the album than the generic. The albums Qui est Derriere Toi, Bord Ezanga Kombo and Arsenal des Melodies were huge succes, but their generics were big flops (except Bicarbonate). 







In the meantime Coupe Decale was dominating Africa and since 2006 also streetdj's of Kinshasa & Brazzaville starting doing their own decale DJ H with Dungubadia, Papy Mbavu with Kotazo and DJ Zembe with Zembe (where the dance of Malewa was inspired from).





from 2009 Nigerian music with P-Square starting to infiltrate DR Congo. The leaders started to complain about music from Ivory Coast and Nigeria starting to dominate Kinshasa (one of reasons of starting Maisha Parc). But they were to focused in polemic and didn't really care since they had still success with their albums in Kinshasa, Brazzaville, Luanda & Abidjan, having support from big donors and still were touring in Europe (except London, since 2006). The only person who really did care about that problem was Werrason, who came then with the Malewa-concept. releasing one generic recorded on the Congolese way calling it mecanique and another generic on the Coupe-Decale way calling it Automatique.




The Malewa-EP was a huge succes and many artists following his example of releasing one decale generic and one congolese, but they all failed. Koffi for example for released then Chicotte a Papa, which flopped very hard. But he came very strong back with Jeune Pato, On Est Ensemble and Toukou Toukou, which made him tour in Africa and give a big show in Abidjan were Abacadabra had a good reception.

It's from 2014 that Congolese artist started to see that they could not release only Rumba's on albums, but the donors had to much power. Boite Noire, Power & Fleche Ingeta are good examples with them starting release albums with more than 20, 25 songs. With Ferre admit it about donors having alot of power and saying that  he got once a bad phone call from Jao Ndombele, who was not happy that he made a sebene-song about him instead of a rumba-song.

I hate the decale and rhumba formula I just want albums to be 50/50 of sebene and meaningful rhumba smh

Here’s a list of albums with equal parts sebene songs, released at the same time or after Monde Arabe

(by no means an exhaustive)
 - Témoignage - Werrason (2005)
 - Mortel combat - Mpela Brothers (2005)
 - Ligne Droite - Reddy Amisi (2005)
 - Faux mutu moko boye - Felix Wazekwa (2005)
 - Le tenant du titre - Madilu System, & Tout Puissant System (Really superb album btw; especially acoustic quality. The label did a horrible job of marketing.) End 2004
 - Que demande le peuple ? - Felix Wazekwa (2008)
 - Extra Musica - La Main Noire (2007)
 - Extra Musica - Obligatoire (2005)
 - Figure de style - Mirage Supersonic (2007)
 - Kaka Yo - Papa Wemba (2008)
 - Bazonkion Na Terrain - Papa Wemba (2005)
 - Nkunzi lele - Papa Wemba (2007)
 - Kanga nzoto - Patrouille des Stars (2011)
 - 16ème arrondissement - Modogo Gian Franco (2010)
 - The Undertaker Vol. 1 - General Defao (2011)
 - Pur Encore - General Defao (2015)
 - Anytime - General Defao (2016)
 - Black Bazar - Black Bazar (Modogo, Sam Tshintu, CNN, and Europe Session artists) 2011
 - Black Bazar Round 2 (2013)
 - Le vainqueur des dangers - Blaise Bula (2011)
 - Quel est ton problème ? - JB Mpiana (2010)

Although it’s slightly hypocritical on his part…
 - Le Jour Le Plus Long - King Kester (2007) Really love this album. One of the greatest, post-2000.

I can keep going…. The point is albums with sebene songs or group efforts did not die out when Monde Arabe came out. What artists probably saw in Monde Arabe was longevity, meaning that Koffi was getting crowd requests at concerts to hear Silivi, Pomme Vert, Aubergine, and Eputsha 2-3 years after the album came out. This encouraged then QL members Fally and Ferre to use this album format for their solo debuts. They became classics.

The thing is (and very big thing) those three albums were full of compositions by the artists themselves. Nowadays all artists use the same pool of songwriters and composers. Exceptions to my knowledge are Defao (who still writes all his songs), Karmapa, and Wazekwa.

The actual style of tcha cho rhumba didn't kill Congolese. I do wish there was more sebene songs. We can't just have three generiques and then the rest are rhumbas, there is actually some rhumbas that would've been better off with sebene at the end. Celeo, Ferre, Bill, Didier Lacoste and some songs in Libre Parcours have sebene songs.

Hat off to you for comprehensively and vividly underscoring the points for the second reason demise of Congolese music regarding the euphoria of G5 solo artistes.

As correctly explained, several half sebenes and rhumba songs were released after the Monde Arab Heist in Congolese music, but the damage done by Monde Arab, especially at a time Quarter Latin had assembled the dream team and the potential G5, was collosal. Monde Arab came at a time when Quarter Latin had so much influence to Congolese music community, youngsters etc. The album was floppy like the Cindy stuffs but was heavily promoted, and by then time, they had money compared to other groups.

Unfortunately enough Koffi Olomide and Company were not good innovators, they were very smart blenders, you can see how unceremoniously they brandished with Ndombolo ya Solo, you could say the invention came from their group.

congolese music can't die. i actually feel as though in the last couple of years (2016/2017) has been the mark of a renaissance in that altho congolese artists seem to be 'stuck' in certain formulas there has been an effort to elevate the quality of songwriting* and production (in studio and video). i think what is actually "killing" the music is the antiquated business practices and polemic. bands are being run in the old way, labels, donors have too much power, how the combattants are being dealt with, etc. way too old school. there needs to be a change in mentality in those regards. the music itself is finding its way back in my humble opinion.

*i definitely agree that pulling from the same pool of songwriters is making things a lil bit monotonous to a degree but i am hoping as new artists continue to splinter off of these groups more songwriters will emerge.

I just want my beloved sebene back 

I feel you CM Prince. Mwana Nsalu I don't know what "renaissance" you are talking about.

I feel you CM Prince. Mwana Nsalu I don't know what "renaissance" you are talking about.

i already explained myself if you don't agree then you don't agree which is fine but don't say you don't know what i'm talking about when i clearly explained why i made that statement lol