Congo Vibes
Music => Congolese Music => Topic started by: Mfumu Vata on June 04, 2023, 11:43
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7YSXikWNyw
Next step being Wembley stadium ?
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Well…. This isn’t entirely surprising:
1) Nigerian diaspora is the largest from Africa and actively promotes its heritage.
2) English: the world’s lingua franca, even a few catchy English lines are enough to entice listeners. Nobody cares about French!
3) afrobeat (in all its guises) is on the rise, or at least is catchy & appealing! What’s the point of 5-10 mins of mumbling rumba when you can have 3-4 mins of catchy & danceable Afrobeat??
In the end; Davido, Burna Boy etc can have exactly this concert in Houston, Toronto or Sydney but Congolese are destined to community halls of Brussels or some random places in Paris! Congolese music (to my chagrin) is longer held in high esteem!
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Well…. This isn’t entirely surprising:
1) Nigerian diaspora is the largest from Africa and actively promotes its heritage.
2) English: the world’s lingua franca, even a few catchy English lines are enough to entice listeners. Nobody cares about French!
3) afrobeat (in all its guises) is on the rise, or at least is catchy & appealing! What’s the point of 5-10 mins of mumbling rumba when you can have 3-4 mins of catchy & danceable Afrobeat??
In the end; Davido, Burna Boy etc can have exactly this concert in Houston, Toronto or Sydney but Congolese are destined to community halls of Brussels or some random places in Paris! Congolese music (to my chagrin) is longer held in high esteem!
You forgot another thing: Nigerians aren't too busy dragging each other down, acting like only one of their artists can be at the top.
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lol, I didn't knew that U-Arena, Zenith, Bercy, l'Olympia and Parc des Princes were random places. I also didn't knew about Cirque Royal and BOZAR being big community halls, its sad that western pop-artists sink low to perform every year at a community halls called Forest National.
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lol, I didn't knew that U-Arena, Zenith, Bercy, l'Olympia and Parc des Princes were random places. I also didn't knew about Cirque Royal and BOZAR being big community halls, its sad that western pop-artists sink low to perform every year at a community halls called Forest National.
By virtue of points mentioned above (diaspora size, cultural influence, singing in (pidgin) English etc...) Nigerians can fill up those Paris venues with ease but the said arenas are the apex for Congolese artists!!
Put it this way, whilst shopping a few weeks ago at https://bluewater.co.uk (https://bluewater.co.uk/); I noticed Afrobeat was on repeat throughout in one of the UK's largest shopping malls. 20-30 years ago, "African Music" = Congolese music, today it is Afrobeat!!
Even South Africa's Kwaito does pop up on the radio and has been adopted by Hollywood.
In my experience of attending African parties in UK, EU & USA; Congolese music is now perceived as outdated; nice but nostalgic! Anyone under 30 has little interest in that genre and that's not entirely surprising when Kin's biggest artists peaked 20-30 years ago and the new (5th) generation leaves a lot to be desired.
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There are about 2,000,000 (2 million) Nigerian diasporas in the UK, and about 500,000 (half a million) in USA. So I'm not surprised to see one of their artist fill in a big concert hall in the UK or USA. Congolese music is popular and more entertaining because of the use of live band with professional musicians. However, the combatants have caused a lot of problems to Congolese artist who were to perfom in Europe.
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There are about 2,000,000 (2 million) Nigerian diasporas in the UK, and about 500,000 (half a million) in USA. So I'm not surprised to see one of their artist fill in a big concert hall in the UK or USA. Congolese music is popular and more entertaining because of the use of live band with professional musicians. However, the combatants have caused a lot of problems to Congolese artist who were to perfom in Europe.
There are only about 1.6 million Africans in the UK.
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There are about 2,000,000 (2 million) Nigerian diasporas in the UK, and about 500,000 (half a million) in USA. So I'm not surprised to see one of their artist fill in a big concert hall in the UK or USA. Congolese music is popular and more entertaining because of the use of live band with professional musicians. However, the combatants have caused a lot of problems to Congolese artist who were to perfom in Europe.
Those numbers about nigerians are lies where did you get that figure from? Congolese music in the diaspora isn’t as popular as what you think it is. Just look at Spotify for example the only Congolese artist with other 1M listeners a month is Fally, he’s our only big well known star at the moment.
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Indeed the number was based on old census that I glanced through in the internet some years back, but was still in the back of my head. 2024 census though shows much lower numbers. A number that is still good enough to support their own artists.