Congo Vibes
Music => Congolese Music => Topic started by: mvulusi96 on May 18, 2016, 17:52
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gxcFf5cdSg
Recorded and released in 1984. During his 8-months stay in Europe. The song Proclamation, Champs Elysee and Miss Besange(dedicated to his then girlfriend Patricia Longomba, sister of Awilo) were big hits. Proclamation would become like a kind of Sapeur-Anthem and selected on the soundtrack of the french movie Black Mic-Mac. The french-press named Papa Wemba during this time the King of the Sapeur-movement, while not being actually not the founder of real adpet it (he was actually doing it just for fun). The succes of this EP boosted the name of Stervos Niarcos even more and it was his first album were he participated as singer. He wrote the songs Proclamation and Champs Elyssee for Papa Wemba on this EP (he was only credited for Champs Elyssee).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfyZL_wyCEc
Two years after this album he recored Siku Ya Mungu, but it was then not a big succes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCTC0gWab6M
His rival Emeneya released the next year Nzinzi was a huge succes and he would then recognized as the man who introduced the synthesizer in the Congolese music-scene, while Papa Wemba and Lita Bembo already done it before him.
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A very odd occurrence indeed - My guess is people didn't quite grasp what synthesizers were that early on.
The director of Black Mic Mac, Thomas Gilou, approached Wemba during filming to feature Proclaimtion because it fit perfectly with the two discotheque scenes, which featured Parisian Sapeur figures. The synthesizers helped the song reach a wider listening audience because of its similarities to pop music of the period... The song ended up on European music charts after the movie's release and massive success (the first breakthrough African diaspora movie).
Empire Bakuba and Youssou N'Dour also found new followings with their more traditional songs featured in those scenes.
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It amazes me how Congolese music-journalists didn't contradict Kester's allegations later on about using as first artist synthesizers and the thing makes its even worser is that its even written in books and confirmed in international press-reports. Did Kester had all those journalists in their pocket or was it because that Wemba wasn't very talkative