Congo Vibes
Music => Congolese Music => Topic started by: archos on December 18, 2023, 13:53
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its been a while since i have done a topic like that,and over the whole weekend that idea was popping up so today i was like why not?
the topic will be about the known rules of our music in bands,the hidden ones,and the new ones added in recent years aswell
some will clearly look logical to most of us but some will be like what kind of thing these guys are smoking
stay tuned,if interested
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its been a while since i have done a topic like that,and over the whole weekend that idea was popping up so today i was like why not?
the topic will be about the known rules of our music in bands,the hidden ones,and the new ones added in recent years aswell
some will clearly look logical to most of us but some will be like what kind of thing these guys are smoking
stay tuned,if interested
Yes do it, unfortunately in Congolese culture we tend to rely too much on oral memory for our history, leaving very few space for written matierials, imagine if Ado Yuhe, Mbuta Likasu, Papa Mboma, Nolly Tambu and many of the other journalists in Kin and in Europe specialized in report8ng Congolese music could do if they solo books with artists
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Looking forward to it.
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Great topic of discussion
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That would be nice. Looking forward to it
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As someone that doesn’t know much about Congolese culture I’m very interested in this.
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if you have questions feel free to ask it might help me structure better the topic,i want it to be easy to read and to understand so maybe it might have specific parts depending of questions
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I would want to know these things:
Who did decide who can put a song on a group album?
How does anybody getting integrated to the group and does everybody have the same rights beside the chef of orchestre?
How does they decide, who is chef d’orcheste? Do they vote?
How much money do they get through Mabanga? Is everything for them or do they need to give some anount to the leader?
Can everybody bring a friend to a test or is it limited?
How often do they have a repetition? How often can you miss til you get suspended?
How did they control the singers on abroad trip?
Are these good question for this topic?
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yes some of the questions have answers in some of my older topic but you just gave me there an idea of how to structure my topic,i think i will do for example rehearsal rules,concert rules,studio rules and so on
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yes some of the questions have answers in some of my older topic but you just gave me there an idea of how to structure my topic,i think i will do for example rehearsal rules,concert rules,studio rules and so on
Also, could you give some stories of politics and conflicts that big bands had and were able to solve? We know often about the ones that split groups, but I've heard stories of donors, members, and even family members that have made interventions to keep a group from splitting or losing key members
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I am actually curious to know what dynamics happen between the boss himself or herself, the musicians and the entourages.
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i am still struggleing to figureing the presentation of the topic to make it easy to read
i am thinking about having specific parts like
-studio rules
-concert rules
-rehearsal rules
- the rights of the staff
and so on
what do you guys think about it?
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i am still struggleing to figureing the presentation of the topic to make it easy to read
i am thinking about having specific parts like
-studio rules
-concert rules
-rehearsal rules
- the rights of the staff
and so on
what do you guys think about it?
Rules on dancers and relations with dancers?
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yes its part of the plans aswell
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i am still struggleing to figureing the presentation of the topic to make it easy to read
i am thinking about having specific parts like
-studio rules
-concert rules
-rehearsal rules
- the rights of the staff
and so on
what do you guys think about it?
I would say between studio rules or rehearsals rules
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CHAPTER ONE:PAYMENT
Payment has always been one of the issues going through decades in our music,from the genesis of the modern era from after independance till today
in the peak of mobutu's zaire,some groups like ok jazz had some structure in which musicians had a payslip,with a legal social welfare ID and taxes deducted and some groups would pay from hand to hand,with no regular basis and for a most not an established fee as it depended of the income of the month and other factors that i will elaborate later in the topic
Then in the 90's came the era of koffi olomide and his quartier latin who wanted to give a "professional" aspect to his group and established a salary system,meant to be given automatically every month,regardless of income and activity,however it was not with payslips like the elders but rather in envelopes with names written on.
The structure of payment varies from one group to another,with quartier latin for most of its existence being the most regular on it on a monthly basis(which then evolved into every other month sometimes here and there but you'd get your two months in most cases),with for example groups like viva la musica,and most wenge musica offshots payment is a matter of "seasons",either every 3 month 6months or sometimes once in a year or cultura pays vie which adopted a bank deposit systeme from 2006/2007 to 2012(until the toxic brothers forced return to hand to hand random payment after reclaiming financial direction) and in some groups in general there is no payment at all.
The reason behind it is that even the groups who pay or "try to pay a bit" still consider that their groups are like a platform where with the success of the group,there is loads of people gravitating around the group either to fund the group as donors and gain back some fame,or just be around as "wealthy" fans musicians can get something from either by begging or by the own will of these people,with the permission or not of the leaders,which will also be elaborated later in this part.
Now,one of the main deep issues around the payment is the expectations/responsabilities/pressure lying on the shoulders of the musicians,and this raises two main factors which have a big influence.
The first being that the way the leaders grow along with their musicians,they always leave a gargantuan distance in terms of improving their financial life with their musicians,for the few groups were there is some payment even if your leader goes from nothing to becoming a millionaire what you agreed or what he is "willing" to give you never evolves,even if the contract the leaders are getting go up 10 20 times higher than in the past.
The second factor being the family and friends pressure,when you are in a big group,you are "forced" to have or pretend having a good lifestyle for the pride and honour of the group and this sends to your family and friends a very overestimated impression of your income so as soon as you make it a group and become one of the regulars,even your 40th aunt or the best friend of an uncle who saw you grow in the area are out there expecting and pressuring you to be ready to pay their children's school fees or solve emergencies like a children stuck in hospital with doctors refusing to treat until payment is complete and then also,ironically,the multiple women they have to date to try to get money from them or from their real husbands via them when they get them pregnant,it can happen that either the husband of the woman decides to leave her because of the cheating exposed or that the musician himself for his ego as a man wants to handle all the fees around the pregnancy(or simultaneous pregancies lol) on his own.
Therefore,with that and all he has to handle as responsabily altogether,the salary plus the outside money can always still be too short which in most cases will lead to strong upset leading towards musicians going solo or switching groups,or musicians living in pain for years or decades until it even is clearly visible on their physical appearance out of loyalty or never thinking of a plan b,or in some cases aswell musicians developping a strong addiction to casino poker and all sorts of betting games to try to cope with all that pressure
-some illustrative figures of the payment musicians ever received
i could not find or firmly remember some fully accurate information about in the peak zaire era with the zaire currency,so i will mainly talk about about the 90's and this century.
For example in quartier latin,there was/is salaries from 50 dollars a month to the record which was held conjointly by fally ipupa and savanet depitcho at 300 dollars a month,then fally got upgraded to 350 until ferre arrived and koffi had to put him on par with ferre's 400 to avoid trouble,then joss diena after their departure took over fally's 350
however with the dismantling of the very popular quartier latin,it gradually changed a bit a evolved towards a system when not everybody has a strict salary.
in clan wenge,in the 3 or 6 month configuration the highest earners were heritier and seguin who would take around 900 with some side bonuses then others would have a fee depending of their order of arrival or importance in the group,or some would not even get a look in as most of the money allocated is focused on the important members and also on the organised "stealing" from the staff
in cultura pays vie when the bank deposit system was started by us it was joss diena and gesac getting a 350 every other month,until a revolt started from ceden play who did not appreciate their salaries going up while their leader had just signed a 100k primus contract which lead to ceden leaving,then joss and gessac a year later
then came the fally ferre era where it mainly became a per concert format where it evolved from 20 dollars in the very early starts then 50 then 100 and up to 250 for the higher up in the hierarchy,but it is also not always automatic,sometimes it is paid like that sometimes it is made like a pack after a certain number of concerts then you get not the exact sum as the chiefs and admins take a percentage,and then there is also periods of no salary at all as their leaders sometimes spend months in europe
-the rights and interdicts of musicians about payment
I will set the record straight away,musicians have ZERO right to claim something about their salary,and it is stated in the written rules of almost every group that the musicians have to accept what they get as officially or unofficially agreed or it is considered as a discplinary breaching.
In reality most groups dont even hand a paper of rules to the musicians but most are known in and around the group or passed by the elders to the newcomers.
For whatever reasons,a lot of leaders consider payment like a favor they are doing to musicians rather than their rights,so even the little almost symbolic "transport" fee after concerts and rehearsals is given or omitted depending on the mood of the leaders or their staffs as they are meant to be able to either beg donors on the phone or in person right at the rehearsal,or fans or friends
It is also important to add,about donorship,that the almost "dictatorial" power of leaders plays a big role,a donor attached to the leader has to give you money only if they give their green light,if you get money from them behind their back it can lead to lengthy suspension or even getting forced out gradually and even with the donors you bring in the groups it is the same.
Therefore,sometimes when musicians leave groups to go solo are it has become more and more common rather than joining other groups,most of the times their own donors go with them to support them and in some cases the influence of the former leader being too big they stay with the big group and have to secretly sneak indirectly money to the new solo artists to avoid being in trouble in the big group
If you are lucky that leader loves you too much,if you raise the question of salary of money in rehearsal or even in private and it is reported to him,either him or the staff of the jesters will rip into you in public in order to send the message to others to not even dare,but then in private with either give some money or will send you towards a donor to appease your heart
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topic updated,almost 1/3 of a year lol,holidays settings
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Thanks @Archos for the write up.
So do all group members get transport money every other rehearsal day or it's only a select few. I am thinking that that's a big cost for the leader if he has to do that. But it would be cheaper if the group is much smaller even in terms of salary.
That's why I support musicians running away/remaining in Europe. It's a necessary evil. Because how can you survive on begging in Kinshasa.
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The issue with our musicians back in Congo is that they don’t understand how the music business works. There’s a lack of information that’s why a lot of musicians get exploited. We have so much talent in our country but we don’t know how to copyright & protect ourselves. In the west we have companies & unions that fight for musicians rights. In Congo there is a lack of that. A lot of these musicians join these bands very young & they’re naive at the time, it’s only when they get to a certain age that’s when they realise that they’ve been exploited. Some musicians are aware that they’re getting exploited but they still stay because they love the status & perks that comes with being a part of a big band in Congo.
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Thanks @Archos for the write up.
So do all group members get transport money every other rehearsal day or it's only a select few. I am thinking that that's a big cost for the leader if he has to do that. But it would be cheaper if the group is much smaller even in terms of salary.
That's why I support musicians running away/remaining in Europe. It's a necessary evil. Because how can you survive on begging in Kinshasa.
not everybody and not always either,musicians are meant to have sugarmommies or friends or donors willing to take care of that instead of most groups
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The issue with our musicians back in Congo is that they don’t understand how the music business works. There’s a lack of information that’s why a lot of musicians get exploited. We have so much talent in our country but we don’t know how to copyright & protect ourselves. In the west we have companies & unions that fight for musicians rights. In Congo there is a lack of that. A lot of these musicians join these bands very young & they’re naive at the time, it’s only when they get to a certain age that’s when they realise that they’ve been exploited. Some musicians are aware that they’re getting exploited but they still stay because they love the status & perks that comes with being a part of a big band in Congo.
its the whole mentality of congolese people in general which causes that,i dont know if its due to the drastic downfall from prime zaire days,but 90 per cent easily of the congolese(and more precisely the kin ones who are the closest known worlwide) consider any job like a favor from their boss,so most are happy with it or being part of a clan in the company which has tactics to make some side money while having 20 months unpaid or stuff like that
and another factor i also relate to the zaire era is that a director of any sort of company has to be like some sort of semi-god who you owe everything to,if you claim your rights you are called ungrateful impolite and so on because people are used to be bullied
i dont think copyright system will ever work well in DRC for at least 3 other centuries,there has to be a complete cleanup of those who lived through that mentality before things really evolve,imagine there are groups where the leaders dont even talk to you anymore until they have orchestrated enough dirty tactics to get you fed up because he heard you received 2K from one of his top donors behind his back,if they think like that,automatically they think that the star soloist atalaku and co can never benefit from that through making a legendary generique for example so they'll happy take their own copyright money in europe and watch the copyright company remain a mess
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I agree. It will take the whole society change in terms of mentality of all people for things to get better in all spheres of life.
Lol. So kozala musician na Kin, its a given that you have to have a sugar mummy. Even in groups ya temoign jehovah ya Wazekwa.
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like baby ndombe says in private and one or two times in interview he thanks God every single dau to have never caught sexual diseases because the amount of sugar mummies he's had to date to afford lavish life like going back from europe tour with two three cars freight already paid and so on,he'd have probably already died especially as the women always insisted for raw in hope of being their baby momma,it used to be very cool from them "femme ya milieu" to be the baby momma of a star singer of a band
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They should be praying to God coz its a miracle that most of them go out unscathed.
I remember Miel De Son saying we defended this movement (Maison Mere) because there are times when as an artist you have your last $100 but you are obliged to go out to the clubs and spend that money as if you have much just to show that the group is doing fine meanwhile you have unpaid house rent and all the other bills.
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and if you watch those leaders rip into the whole group during rehearsal or reunion for not going enough to nightclubs and so on or bringing sugarmommies or those young escorts who chew money from politicians,you'd think they paid them a lot and they did not respect the rest of their duties loool
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https://youtu.be/QLH403VNAuQ?si=VTSDaUN8PBPiqcM3
It made me think about the moment when Serge Mabiala presented his sugarmom on tv 8:10 min
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Excellent and insightful write up @Archos
https://youtu.be/QLH403VNAuQ?si=VTSDaUN8PBPiqcM3
It made me think about the moment when Serge Mabiala presented his sugarmom on tv 8:10 min
Vieux Masta Mfumu - the forum has missed you dearly. Glad to see you back
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https://youtu.be/QLH403VNAuQ?si=VTSDaUN8PBPiqcM3
It made me think about the moment when Serge Mabiala presented his sugarmom on tv 8:10 min
Oh my Gosh welcome back Mfumu! We’ve missed you a lot.
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https://youtu.be/QLH403VNAuQ?si=VTSDaUN8PBPiqcM3
It made me think about the moment when Serge Mabiala presented his sugarmom on tv 8:10 min
mpangiiiiiiiiiiiii enchanté de te voir,welcome back na palais
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https://youtu.be/QLH403VNAuQ?si=VTSDaUN8PBPiqcM3
It made me think about the moment when Serge Mabiala presented his sugarmom on tv 8:10 min
Le grand retour!!!! I am very happy!
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Bo banga te. Nazali, naza, pe nako zala kaka
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coming soon,chapter two,the dancers,their rights,their obligations,their different hidden roles,
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I cannot wait for this story. This will be the most scandalous especially how the dancers have been and still get treated.
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I was curious on how musicians, or bands get payed on concerts. I came across one YouTube channel that provided an insight though it's not always straightforward. What I have learned, and as an example, a band can charge $300 to $750/band member/song, depending on how popular the group is. So say a band that has 10 members , charging at 300$/band member/song, and playing 10 songs for a one hour concert would ask for $30,000 as minimum provided the promoter, or organiser covers other incurred cost such as transport, logistics, hotel, food, stage graphic, sound engineer, tax...etc. If however the deal is such that the band needs to cover other incurred costs, then the asking price from the band or band manager would be ($30,000 + other incurred cost ). That's why having too many members in the band is not justifiable economically. Now Imagine a band that has 10 singers, 10 dancers and at least 5 musicians, say a total of 25 members. In that case, the band may consider squeezing their minimum asking price to only $50/band member/song, and if the band has to cover othe incurred cost, they will definitely go for cheapest option like taking airline that does not serve food nor beverages, booking bed and breakfast instead of hotels, going for poor quality sound system,.......etc. This will degrade reputation of any band seeking to raise its bar.
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CHAPTER TWO: FEMALE DANCERS
The name explains itself,female dancers primary role is to be part of the dancing section of the group and participate either with choreographies during rumbas,collective choreographies with the band on sebene songs and generiques and their own choreographies which are often used to give reserve members of the backline some playing time,or one of the steps towards becoming a first team instrumentist
their participation in congolese music covers most of its history and in this part we will talk about their conditions of work,their rights,their obligations,the advantages and the bad sides of being a female dancer in DRC and also their hidden roles
-SALARY,RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS
dancers' payment often depends from the structure of payment of the group,but what is certain in most cases is that their salary is often smaller than those of men,and leaders use as reason the fact that they have to pay for their hair nails and so on
so in average the dancers rarely topped the 100 dollars a month official salary,and sometimes an artist like koffi olomide when he had the strict monthly structure who would pay a certain amount for an already proven dancer joining his band as a sign on fee which could in some cases to 3000 dollars to sign a contract then 100 150 200 depending of how popular the dancer was before joining
they have like their male colleagues of all the departments to be their at the rehearsals,concerts and reunions,and they have often a bigger right in benefitting treatment in case of illness then men,for two reasons,the first being the natural one that in african mentality women need a bit more care than men,then another one which will be explained later on in the post
-THE PROS AND THE CONS OF BEING A DANCER IN DRC
two of the biggest pros of being a dancer is a certain fame you can acquire via being seen on tv and the fact of travelling around the world if you manage to get into the list
the biggest con by far is the fact that female dancers are extremely sexualised,they are seen by many people in the society like prostitutes and " a shameful job" and unfortunately the behavior of some of them on stage never helped get that bad reputation away
therefore it leads to an "universal" rule in bands of drc,that they dont have the right to date male musicians of the band and have the obligation in most cases to move to another group or to retire from dancing to protect the relationship
leaders' reason behind that rule is that they claim its a threat for the group's harmony because for example a rift can start during a concert because a guy came to shower money on the female dancer and got too close physically or vice versa
but in reality the reason is that most leaders love having dancers who dont have any engagement even outside the group so that they can use them for their sexual satisfaction
and in most of the cases it works,because of the women's desperation for fame/luxury life but also because of the familial pressure i mention in the other post,very few dancers manage to say no and stand by their stance
and it has been going on for decades and while we could have have expected it to change,it still continues even down to the urban music generation,and sometimes on advice of elders,without giving names i will for example mention an elder telling ferre in front of me you see them dancers you can have good fun with them if you want you can even sleep two of them at the same time after concerts
then outside of their roles for the pleasure of their leaders,they have an hidden role that i will talk about in the next part
THE HIDDEN ROLES
the oldest hidden role of female dancers is that they are sent to donors,either on the donor's demand in order to upgrade their involvement in donorship,or on mission to lure a uprising donor so that he concentrates most his money on that band and gives less to the others
this role also has at times a hidden spiritual agenda,in the sense that dancers are sent to sleep with those donors to steal their aura and then enhance their leader's as he'd sleep with them after
for those roles most of the times the reward is a very tiny part of the amount the leader himself gets,then the "basic luxury" comfort expected to be enough to satisfy young african women(house rent,foreign channels,nails and hair money...) and in some of the wildest cases of this it sometimes went as far as deaths of those donors for the spiritual reasons,which lead to strong anger for some of those dancers about being involved in such dark secrets with so little reward compared to the familial pressure where they have to sometimes pay scholarship of all their siblings and their children,their medical care and so on throughout their careers
two other roles which have emerged of late are that they are sometimes told by leaders to go and get numbers of women in the crowd or sometimes on stage when a woman comes to salute/give money/take a selfie and then an artistic one which consists in some groups for the most experienced dancers to be able to tell guitarists that a string is off tune or things like that instead,or also the two dancers on the left and right of leaders have sometimes responsability to remind them of lyrics as sometimes they come freshly from a meeting,or straight from sex in bed and need a couple of songs to get their act together and remember the right order of their songs
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CHAPTER TWO: FEMALE DANCERS
The name explains itself,female dancers primary role is to be part of the dancing section of the group and participate either with choreographies during rumbas,collective choreographies with the band on sebene songs and generiques and their own choreographies which are often used to give reserve members of the backline some playing time,or one of the steps towards becoming a first team instrumentist
their participation in congolese music covers most of its history and in this part we will talk about their conditions of work,their rights,their obligations,the advantages and the bad sides of being a female dancer in DRC and also their hidden roles
-SALARY,RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS
dancers' payment often depends from the structure of payment of the group,but what is certain in most cases is that their salary is often smaller than those of men,and leaders use as reason the fact that they have to pay for their hair nails and so on
so in average the dancers rarely topped the 100 dollars a month official salary,and sometimes an artist like koffi olomide when he had the strict monthly structure who would pay a certain amount for an already proven dancer joining his band as a sign on fee which could in some cases to 3000 dollars to sign a contract then 100 150 200 depending of how popular the dancer was before joining
they have like their male colleagues of all the departments to be their at the rehearsals,concerts and reunions,and they have often a bigger right in benefitting treatment in case of illness then men,for two reasons,the first being the natural one that in african mentality women need a bit more care than men,then another one which will be explained later on in the post
-THE PROS AND THE CONS OF BEING A DANCER IN DRC
two of the biggest pros of being a dancer is a certain fame you can acquire via being seen on tv and the fact of travelling around the world if you manage to get into the list
the biggest con by far is the fact that female dancers are extremely sexualised,they are seen by many people in the society like prostitutes and " a shameful job" and unfortunately the behavior of some of them on stage never helped get that bad reputation away
therefore it leads to an "universal" rule in bands of drc,that they dont have the right to date male musicians of the band and have the obligation in most cases to move to another group or to retire from dancing to protect the relationship
leaders' reason behind that rule is that they claim its a threat for the group's harmony because for example a rift can start during a concert because a guy came to shower money on the female dancer and got too close physically or vice versa
but in reality the reason is that most leaders love having dancers who dont have any engagement even outside the group so that they can use them for their sexual satisfaction
and in most of the cases it works,because of the women's desperation for fame/luxury life but also because of the familial pressure i mention in the other post,very few dancers manage to say no and stand by their stance
and it has been going on for decades and while we could have have expected it to change,it still continues even down to the urban music generation,and sometimes on advice of elders,without giving names i will for example mention an elder telling ferre in front of me you see them dancers you can have good fun with them if you want you can even sleep two of them at the same time after concerts
then outside of their roles for the pleasure of their leaders,they have an hidden role that i will talk about in the next part
THE HIDDEN ROLES
the oldest hidden role of female dancers is that they are sent to donors,either on the donor's demand in order to upgrade their involvement in donorship,or on mission to lure a uprising donor so that he concentrates most his money on that band and gives less to the others
this role also has at times a hidden spiritual agenda,in the sense that dancers are sent to sleep with those donors to steal their aura and then enhance their leader's as he'd sleep with them after
for those roles most of the times the reward is a very tiny part of the amount the leader himself gets,then the "basic luxury" comfort expected to be enough to satisfy young african women(house rent,foreign channels,nails and hair money...) and in some of the wildest cases of this it sometimes went as far as deaths of those donors for the spiritual reasons,which lead to strong anger for some of those dancers about being involved in such dark secrets with so little reward compared to the familial pressure where they have to sometimes pay scholarship of all their siblings and their children,their medical care and so on throughout their careers
two other roles which have emerged of late are that they are sometimes told by leaders to go and get numbers of women in the crowd or sometimes on stage when a woman comes to salute/give money/take a selfie and then an artistic one which consists in some groups for the most experienced dancers to be able to tell guitarists that a string is off tune or things like that instead,or also the two dancers on the left and right of leaders have sometimes responsability to remind them of lyrics as sometimes they come freshly from a meeting,or straight from sex in bed and need a couple of songs to get their act together and remember the right order of their songs
thank you for this.
Elaborate the role of the chef of the dancers and her remuneration.
I also noticed a lot of these dancers end up settling abroad.
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CHAPTER TWO: FEMALE DANCERS
The name explains itself,female dancers primary role is to be part of the dancing section of the group and participate either with choreographies during rumbas,collective choreographies with the band on sebene songs and generiques and their own choreographies which are often used to give reserve members of the backline some playing time,or one of the steps towards becoming a first team instrumentist
their participation in congolese music covers most of its history and in this part we will talk about their conditions of work,their rights,their obligations,the advantages and the bad sides of being a female dancer in DRC and also their hidden roles
-SALARY,RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS
dancers' payment often depends from the structure of payment of the group,but what is certain in most cases is that their salary is often smaller than those of men,and leaders use as reason the fact that they have to pay for their hair nails and so on
so in average the dancers rarely topped the 100 dollars a month official salary,and sometimes an artist like koffi olomide when he had the strict monthly structure who would pay a certain amount for an already proven dancer joining his band as a sign on fee which could in some cases to 3000 dollars to sign a contract then 100 150 200 depending of how popular the dancer was before joining
they have like their male colleagues of all the departments to be their at the rehearsals,concerts and reunions,and they have often a bigger right in benefitting treatment in case of illness then men,for two reasons,the first being the natural one that in african mentality women need a bit more care than men,then another one which will be explained later on in the post
-THE PROS AND THE CONS OF BEING A DANCER IN DRC
two of the biggest pros of being a dancer is a certain fame you can acquire via being seen on tv and the fact of travelling around the world if you manage to get into the list
the biggest con by far is the fact that female dancers are extremely sexualised,they are seen by many people in the society like prostitutes and " a shameful job" and unfortunately the behavior of some of them on stage never helped get that bad reputation away
therefore it leads to an "universal" rule in bands of drc,that they dont have the right to date male musicians of the band and have the obligation in most cases to move to another group or to retire from dancing to protect the relationship
leaders' reason behind that rule is that they claim its a threat for the group's harmony because for example a rift can start during a concert because a guy came to shower money on the female dancer and got too close physically or vice versa
but in reality the reason is that most leaders love having dancers who dont have any engagement even outside the group so that they can use them for their sexual satisfaction
and in most of the cases it works,because of the women's desperation for fame/luxury life but also because of the familial pressure i mention in the other post,very few dancers manage to say no and stand by their stance
and it has been going on for decades and while we could have have expected it to change,it still continues even down to the urban music generation,and sometimes on advice of elders,without giving names i will for example mention an elder telling ferre in front of me you see them dancers you can have good fun with them if you want you can even sleep two of them at the same time after concerts
then outside of their roles for the pleasure of their leaders,they have an hidden role that i will talk about in the next part
THE HIDDEN ROLES
the oldest hidden role of female dancers is that they are sent to donors,either on the donor's demand in order to upgrade their involvement in donorship,or on mission to lure a uprising donor so that he concentrates most his money on that band and gives less to the others
this role also has at times a hidden spiritual agenda,in the sense that dancers are sent to sleep with those donors to steal their aura and then enhance their leader's as he'd sleep with them after
for those roles most of the times the reward is a very tiny part of the amount the leader himself gets,then the "basic luxury" comfort expected to be enough to satisfy young african women(house rent,foreign channels,nails and hair money...) and in some of the wildest cases of this it sometimes went as far as deaths of those donors for the spiritual reasons,which lead to strong anger for some of those dancers about being involved in such dark secrets with so little reward compared to the familial pressure where they have to sometimes pay scholarship of all their siblings and their children,their medical care and so on throughout their careers
two other roles which have emerged of late are that they are sometimes told by leaders to go and get numbers of women in the crowd or sometimes on stage when a woman comes to salute/give money/take a selfie and then an artistic one which consists in some groups for the most experienced dancers to be able to tell guitarists that a string is off tune or things like that instead,or also the two dancers on the left and right of leaders have sometimes responsability to remind them of lyrics as sometimes they come freshly from a meeting,or straight from sex in bed and need a couple of songs to get their act together and remember the right order of their songs
Talking about stealing aura's from businessmen. Is that also another reason, next to jealousy of bandleaders not wanting their musicians to sleep with the dancers ? Because I remember during Covid, Jordan Kusa in his live on Instragram with I think Lodia H2O talking about 'nikisi', indirectly that it attracted bad luck to bandmembers who were doing that.
Going back to the part of 'stealing aura', is that not the reason why bandleaders act weird to influent donors and fans, or/also ignoring them when they are down, not giving shout-outs anymore until they pass away and then suddenly saying that they were important to the band, giving tribute, etc.
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CHAPTER TWO: FEMALE DANCERS
The name explains itself,female dancers primary role is to be part of the dancing section of the group and participate either with choreographies during rumbas,collective choreographies with the band on sebene songs and generiques and their own choreographies which are often used to give reserve members of the backline some playing time,or one of the steps towards becoming a first team instrumentist
their participation in congolese music covers most of its history and in this part we will talk about their conditions of work,their rights,their obligations,the advantages and the bad sides of being a female dancer in DRC and also their hidden roles
-SALARY,RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS
dancers' payment often depends from the structure of payment of the group,but what is certain in most cases is that their salary is often smaller than those of men,and leaders use as reason the fact that they have to pay for their hair nails and so on
so in average the dancers rarely topped the 100 dollars a month official salary,and sometimes an artist like koffi olomide when he had the strict monthly structure who would pay a certain amount for an already proven dancer joining his band as a sign on fee which could in some cases to 3000 dollars to sign a contract then 100 150 200 depending of how popular the dancer was before joining
they have like their male colleagues of all the departments to be their at the rehearsals,concerts and reunions,and they have often a bigger right in benefitting treatment in case of illness then men,for two reasons,the first being the natural one that in african mentality women need a bit more care than men,then another one which will be explained later on in the post
-THE PROS AND THE CONS OF BEING A DANCER IN DRC
two of the biggest pros of being a dancer is a certain fame you can acquire via being seen on tv and the fact of travelling around the world if you manage to get into the list
the biggest con by far is the fact that female dancers are extremely sexualised,they are seen by many people in the society like prostitutes and " a shameful job" and unfortunately the behavior of some of them on stage never helped get that bad reputation away
therefore it leads to an "universal" rule in bands of drc,that they dont have the right to date male musicians of the band and have the obligation in most cases to move to another group or to retire from dancing to protect the relationship
leaders' reason behind that rule is that they claim its a threat for the group's harmony because for example a rift can start during a concert because a guy came to shower money on the female dancer and got too close physically or vice versa
but in reality the reason is that most leaders love having dancers who dont have any engagement even outside the group so that they can use them for their sexual satisfaction
and in most of the cases it works,because of the women's desperation for fame/luxury life but also because of the familial pressure i mention in the other post,very few dancers manage to say no and stand by their stance
and it has been going on for decades and while we could have have expected it to change,it still continues even down to the urban music generation,and sometimes on advice of elders,without giving names i will for example mention an elder telling ferre in front of me you see them dancers you can have good fun with them if you want you can even sleep two of them at the same time after concerts
then outside of their roles for the pleasure of their leaders,they have an hidden role that i will talk about in the next part
THE HIDDEN ROLES
the oldest hidden role of female dancers is that they are sent to donors,either on the donor's demand in order to upgrade their involvement in donorship,or on mission to lure a uprising donor so that he concentrates most his money on that band and gives less to the others
this role also has at times a hidden spiritual agenda,in the sense that dancers are sent to sleep with those donors to steal their aura and then enhance their leader's as he'd sleep with them after
for those roles most of the times the reward is a very tiny part of the amount the leader himself gets,then the "basic luxury" comfort expected to be enough to satisfy young african women(house rent,foreign channels,nails and hair money...) and in some of the wildest cases of this it sometimes went as far as deaths of those donors for the spiritual reasons,which lead to strong anger for some of those dancers about being involved in such dark secrets with so little reward compared to the familial pressure where they have to sometimes pay scholarship of all their siblings and their children,their medical care and so on throughout their careers
two other roles which have emerged of late are that they are sometimes told by leaders to go and get numbers of women in the crowd or sometimes on stage when a woman comes to salute/give money/take a selfie and then an artistic one which consists in some groups for the most experienced dancers to be able to tell guitarists that a string is off tune or things like that instead,or also the two dancers on the left and right of leaders have sometimes responsability to remind them of lyrics as sometimes they come freshly from a meeting,or straight from sex in bed and need a couple of songs to get their act together and remember the right order of their songs
thank you for this.
Elaborate the role of the chef of the dancers and her remuneration.
I also noticed a lot of these dancers end up settling abroad.
their role is pretty simple,they'll for example be in charge of buying the outfits or going to take them where they hire for a clip for example and stuff like that,then of course they are in many cases the top sidekick among the dancers,so the prices i mentioned are more or less that,100 200 300 a month or every other month and mainly the advantage like sometimes rent,some clothes and cosmetic....
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CHAPTER TWO: FEMALE DANCERS
The name explains itself,female dancers primary role is to be part of the dancing section of the group and participate either with choreographies during rumbas,collective choreographies with the band on sebene songs and generiques and their own choreographies which are often used to give reserve members of the backline some playing time,or one of the steps towards becoming a first team instrumentist
their participation in congolese music covers most of its history and in this part we will talk about their conditions of work,their rights,their obligations,the advantages and the bad sides of being a female dancer in DRC and also their hidden roles
-SALARY,RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS
dancers' payment often depends from the structure of payment of the group,but what is certain in most cases is that their salary is often smaller than those of men,and leaders use as reason the fact that they have to pay for their hair nails and so on
so in average the dancers rarely topped the 100 dollars a month official salary,and sometimes an artist like koffi olomide when he had the strict monthly structure who would pay a certain amount for an already proven dancer joining his band as a sign on fee which could in some cases to 3000 dollars to sign a contract then 100 150 200 depending of how popular the dancer was before joining
they have like their male colleagues of all the departments to be their at the rehearsals,concerts and reunions,and they have often a bigger right in benefitting treatment in case of illness then men,for two reasons,the first being the natural one that in african mentality women need a bit more care than men,then another one which will be explained later on in the post
-THE PROS AND THE CONS OF BEING A DANCER IN DRC
two of the biggest pros of being a dancer is a certain fame you can acquire via being seen on tv and the fact of travelling around the world if you manage to get into the list
the biggest con by far is the fact that female dancers are extremely sexualised,they are seen by many people in the society like prostitutes and " a shameful job" and unfortunately the behavior of some of them on stage never helped get that bad reputation away
therefore it leads to an "universal" rule in bands of drc,that they dont have the right to date male musicians of the band and have the obligation in most cases to move to another group or to retire from dancing to protect the relationship
leaders' reason behind that rule is that they claim its a threat for the group's harmony because for example a rift can start during a concert because a guy came to shower money on the female dancer and got too close physically or vice versa
but in reality the reason is that most leaders love having dancers who dont have any engagement even outside the group so that they can use them for their sexual satisfaction
and in most of the cases it works,because of the women's desperation for fame/luxury life but also because of the familial pressure i mention in the other post,very few dancers manage to say no and stand by their stance
and it has been going on for decades and while we could have have expected it to change,it still continues even down to the urban music generation,and sometimes on advice of elders,without giving names i will for example mention an elder telling ferre in front of me you see them dancers you can have good fun with them if you want you can even sleep two of them at the same time after concerts
then outside of their roles for the pleasure of their leaders,they have an hidden role that i will talk about in the next part
THE HIDDEN ROLES
the oldest hidden role of female dancers is that they are sent to donors,either on the donor's demand in order to upgrade their involvement in donorship,or on mission to lure a uprising donor so that he concentrates most his money on that band and gives less to the others
this role also has at times a hidden spiritual agenda,in the sense that dancers are sent to sleep with those donors to steal their aura and then enhance their leader's as he'd sleep with them after
for those roles most of the times the reward is a very tiny part of the amount the leader himself gets,then the "basic luxury" comfort expected to be enough to satisfy young african women(house rent,foreign channels,nails and hair money...) and in some of the wildest cases of this it sometimes went as far as deaths of those donors for the spiritual reasons,which lead to strong anger for some of those dancers about being involved in such dark secrets with so little reward compared to the familial pressure where they have to sometimes pay scholarship of all their siblings and their children,their medical care and so on throughout their careers
two other roles which have emerged of late are that they are sometimes told by leaders to go and get numbers of women in the crowd or sometimes on stage when a woman comes to salute/give money/take a selfie and then an artistic one which consists in some groups for the most experienced dancers to be able to tell guitarists that a string is off tune or things like that instead,or also the two dancers on the left and right of leaders have sometimes responsability to remind them of lyrics as sometimes they come freshly from a meeting,or straight from sex in bed and need a couple of songs to get their act together and remember the right order of their songs
Talking about stealing aura's from businessmen. Is that also another reason, next to jealousy of bandleaders not wanting their musicians to sleep with the dancers ? Because I remember during Covid, Jordan Kusa in his live on Instragram with I think Lodia H2O talking about 'nikisi', indirectly that it attracted bad luck to bandmembers who were doing that.
Going back to the part of 'stealing aura', is that not the reason why bandleaders act weird to influent donors and fans, or/also ignoring them when they are down, not giving shout-outs anymore until they pass away and then suddenly saying that they were important to the band, giving tribute, etc.
Yes because sometimes they feel like the donor "took what they had to take",there is a lot of hypocricy in the relationship with donors,and without trying to be too obscene it goes even with men since some donors like to do stuff with men aswell
the thing is that when the female dancers are sent on mission leaders prepare their thing already and have to be the next one sleeping to start gradually taking away the power from the guy,so they continuously take the money and then contribute to your downfall spiritually aswell and by the time you are down there is 10 guys on a massive rise desperate to cement their names
i wont give the name in public but one leader literally grabbed a musician once with his two hands on his neck and lifted him on the wall because he was furious that "abebisaki makambu" and then that musician ended up missing trips as a punition for years
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Interesting information. Just for the sake of my understanding, who are the donors ?. Can you give some example?. Secodnly any idea how much does it cost to hire a Congolese band for concerts, celebrations festivals.....etc ?.
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there are so many of them,whether from some business,or some dodgy activities,or business as undercover for dodgy activities....
an example,i will say didi kinuani who in his prime of sponsorship could pay 20 tickets for a band on his own to europe which is like 30K euros,the prices completely depend from the level of popularity of the artist,then the relationship with the organizer,they can give a concert almost for free to certain people then have a low cut price to some then have a compromise between their demand and what promoters offer,then cases where they go straight for top dollar like for example in ivory coast you can be sure that if the guy wants 50k or the 100 he is most likely getting it(fally ferre jb werra koffi in particular)
them there are some artists who in the build of their career can accept lower prices while they are building network,and then in the long run it can open a lot of doors to them and some who chose to stick by their demands and then look like not touring that much until their hits still get them touring a bit naturally somebody like ferre for example for having worked a bit with him long ago does not want to hear about playing for peanuts because in the future it could help in something he takes it very personal like you are disrespecting his job,unless like i said above relationship plays a role
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Thanks bro. Well understood.
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REHEARSALS
rehearsals are a crucial part of congolese music,whether in terms of building Chemistry within a new band from a leader coming from a big band,or to help an already established band maintain or improve their rendition of previous work or to prepare concerts after the release of a new album,because in a lot of cases now a fairly important part of albums is not rehearsed,they modify,improvise and change some stuff in studio,some songs even are created and rehearsed in studio straight away during the recording process,so as leaders tend to forget the order of some lyrics,they need the band to rehearse those songs a lot in order to avoid as much as possible reversing order of verses of a song
and obviously a part from the singing parts,there is the dancing aspect where leader and bandmembers rehearse past dance moves and try to create together new moves or the leader comes and validâtes what he finds interesting,the rehearsals also have a recruiting aspect as sometimes since there is almost no public concert with big podiums sponsored by big mobile and beer companies in the "popular areas" people aspiring to join groups are coming to rehearsals to pass a test,more often than not,with the intervention of an influent band member sometimes in exchange of money
that being said,like various other aspects of our music,rehearsals have their rules which can vary from a group or another but there is a lot of similarities in general that i managed to assemble through my inquiries
1- Transport
in most groups,there is allowance after rehearsals to "help musicians" get back home,it can go from very minimal fees like 10000 congolese francs to sometimes 50 100 dollars when the leader is in a fantastic mood after a series of lucrative deals,but its not Something respected automatically by most bands,a lot of leaders or their staffs consider that being next to them is a big enough spotlight for you as a musician to not have to depend from them for any little thing,so in a lot of cases the leader will just storm out of the rehearsal Driving his porsche range rover ferrari rolls and so on fast and his staff giving the sulking musicians the most rude possible answer to feel important
complaining too vehemently and too frequently about it can lead to the leader and his jesters forceing out,especially when you are an influent figure of the band as they'll suspect you of being capable to build a rebellion within the band
2 Hour of arrival/outfit of rehearsal
the starting hour of rehearsals is often decided by the leaders and their chefs,however some musicians have a different treatment in terms of respecting that hour,first of all the leaders themselves come when they want or come but start rehearsing when they one even if they want to rehearse for 5 minutes after the band completing 6 hours of rehearsal nobody can say anything to them in principle,a couple of times musicians named chef de repetition(chief of rehearsal)tried to test their influence with that role by telling leaders they would not rehearse for coming late or confronting the leader for singing out of tune when they start got some members in deep trouble
then there is sometimes influent members who are allowed to come late without faceing punishment,or also some favorite of the chefs
3 Alcohol Witchcraft and Drugs
alcohol is authorized in rehearsals,and even though it were to be prohibited,a lot of band members found a trick with those traditional drinks which are a for most transparent or they hide it in a coloured bottle
drugs and especially weed is meant to be forbidden in bands but its a bypassed rule,or if they are not smoking at rehearsals they'd go in a house or en empty school not too far to smoke
there is also an important part about witchcraft in many groups,in fact in some groups the toilets and the space in front or sometimes also behind the podium are like an open temple for either proven musicians of the bands either fighting each other or individually trying to shine especially when its rehearsals with crowd,or also those coming for tests being denied access to toilets in anticipation of witchcraft,for example one of the famous cases of that with nono fudji's test in bcbg where he had to go home as he felt uncomfortable with stress and was denied access by bodyguards who suspected him wanting to put a curse so that his test is succesful and had to come again hours after
officially leaders are against that but like with weed its something most leaders struggle to fully control
4 dancers
now this is a very secret rule only known by a few people,then indirectly observed and noticed by band members,in many bands dancers have a silent obligation to stay after rehearsals so that leader picks "who he wants" that day,or a top donor,but its done in a subtle way its not like a strict order that everybody knows,there is specific days for that and if the dancer runs away when made aware its "her turn" she can be in trouble
its not something which happens every single week but a lot of times in a year as i am told by a few dancers i got feedback from
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REHEARSALS
4 dancers
now this is a very secret rule only known by a few people,then indirectly observed and noticed by band members,in many bands dancers have a silent obligation to stay after rehearsals so that leader picks "who he wants" that day,or a top donor,but its done in a subtle way its not like a strict order that everybody knows,there is specific days for that and if the dancer runs away when made aware its "her turn" she can be in trouble
its not something which happens every single week but a lot of times in a year as i am told by a few dancers i got feedback from
Hehehe
Elaborate some more here. Who arranged for this,the chieftain?
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Its planned between the leader and his stafff and his jesters,and sometimes the cheftaine,unless she is a very jealous one
some cheftaines just understand "its the system" and pleasing the leaders potentially get them more money to face the big problematic of families looking up to you a lot when you are in a big band