i was driving back home after a tour in town for whats the french kinda equivalent of independance day and i put a random youtube playlist with wenge key word,and it went from 4X4 to maison mere to bcbg to el paris to manda in solo...and i really think el paris before and after 4X4 split has been unlucky that the guys of 4X4 were getting much more attention
listen to that song by celezino guys,proper music not that current music full of studio effects

Wenge El Paris made some great music but I guess Marie Paul bitterness towards Werra ruined it all, is the same thing that happened to Celeo and to some extent Fabregas, if you keep focusing on polemic people will forget that you are a music artist

Archos, I said this 2 about decades ago and I got laughed at. Simaro said it best, “Europe is a graveyard for Congolese artists.” They should’ve just stayed in Bandal the whole time.

Wenge El Paris made some great music but I guess Marie Paul bitterness towards Werra ruined it all, is the same thing that happened to Celeo and to some extent Fabregas, if you keep focusing on polemic people will forget that you are a music artist

It doesn´t have to do with Marie Paul´s bitterness towards Werra. Its just that everybody was focused on the BCBG vs Maison Mere rivalery, while they used to be Wenge 4x4 rivals, also it took them a long time to release an album. But about Eboulement Totale, it was a big succes, but people were more focused on Marie Paul´s songs Amanda Duchesse, La Vie, Prierre de Marie Paul & Un Dollard qui rayonne then those of Bob Lorenzo, Celezino & Charly Chaplin.

Archos, I said this 2 about decades ago and I got laughed at. Simaro said it best, “Europe is a graveyard for Congolese artists.” They should’ve just stayed in Bandal the whole time.

Lol, that just the problem. They were blocked for 7 years in Kinshasa (1993-2000), not being able to go back to Europe again, while Maison Mere, Wenge BCBG were able to sement a huge fanbase in Europe (they went already 2/3 there before the El Paris finally arrived).

Being a younger, I've had no idea that El Paris was that big back in the 90s. I knew they were successful, but I didn't think they had crazy success. No way this band deserves to be slept on.

Question for the elders: what do you think would've happened if it all went right for El Paris? What if they were able to tour Europe in the mid 90s? What if they didn't take too long between Couvre-Feu and KO Debout? What if they managed to return to Kin after Eboulement?

Wenge El Paris already disbanned before recording Eboulement, after that the tour didn't go well. They recorded Eboulement with only 8 bandmembers. Marie Paul lost shortly after the Eboulement his head and became a kind of brother in christ, before returning to Kinshasa in 2004. If he returned after Eboulement, it wouldn't change alot,  because Kinshasa was then for 4 artists (Werra, JB, Koffi & Wemba) which was already the case since 1999.

Things could have been different if El Paris managed to tour in Europe before Maison Mere, but that's if if if if. We will never know how all these things would be.

Being a younger, I've had no idea that El Paris was that big back in the 90s. I knew they were successful, but I didn't think they had crazy success. No way this band deserves to be slept on.

El Paris had crazy succes in the 90s. They had done things that Wenge 4x4 never had done which is performing at stadiums. They performed 4/6 times at Stade de 20 Mai (1994, 1996, 1997, 1999) and they set a record crowd at l'Esplanade de Palais du Peuple (more than 120.000 spectators) in 1997 which made pastors and bandleaders the desire to also perform there. The way people were following Werrason in his prime-time, that's the way how people used to follow Marie Paul from 1992 to 1999 (screaming Roi Soleil, Roi Pele, Roi Soleil). Marie Paul was able to steal crowds of Wenge 4x4 by witchcraft, by coming with a soccerball to their concert and suddenly all people following him and Wenge 4x4 staying behind without crowd. That's why JB, Werra and co were mad at him. The problem is that all that fame was never promoted in Europe and they had a bad management when they got abandoned by Kongolo Mobutu. For example the famous concert at Palais du Peuple got never officialy released on VHS in Europe. They only released his concert at Stade de 20 Mai of 1999, when his succes started to go down (the audio version is on youtube).

Over the years, I have discovered that his wenge style is the one that inspired Kin e Bouge. Listen to that style even in Nganga Nzambe and Dicepta...