Epic album too. Not sure why Congolese don’t do collaborations with other styles and add a spin to it. Especially with the rise of French rap this is peak time to do this.
They didn't want to take the risk, because their own public would turn their back to them. Look how bad Nzinzi of Emeneya was received in the beginning before becoming a huge succes, people, journalists and even bandleaders like Tabu Ley and Abeti Masikini critizing him. When Emeneya released Mokosa, which was inspired of music from South Africa and the French West-Indies and totally different from his original music style that he used to do between 1982-1987, when his peak, his fans and people were saying that he messed his music up. The album Everybody of 1993 was seen as alien to the Congolese public and basically killed his career. It only got respect when he passed away. In the period that he released the album, journalist Bamba Toko then wrote "Emeneya threw his rhythm on the street and the youngsters of Wenge had picked it up", reffering the way Wenge did Kalayi Boeing and Mulolo who were for a part Mbala-folklore mixed with Congolese music like what Kester used to do in some of his hitsongs, having that folkloric guitar of the Bandundu-region. Everybody turned the back on him and started to say that he was finished.
Papa Wemba had the same thing with his public. He was just lucky that he big management-team, a great manager and that he was giving his musicians Stino Mubi, Reddy Amisi, Joly Mubiala, Ping-Pong, etc. space to release albums otherwise he would have been finished in his community. Although having succes with the white audience and his name getting known in countries like Ivory Coast, Senegal, Tchad, etc. because his album with Martin Messoniers (in 1989) and later the albums he made with Real World (Le Voyageur, Emotion and Molokai). But his own community wasn't liking that kind of music. It came at some point that people were saying that he was finished, just profiting from the succes of Reddy and Stino and that he had to stop with music. When he signed a 5 years deal with Unibra (Skol) to have concerts in the period of new years in Kinshasa, he came with Reddy Amisi in 1993. When performing in his area Matonge, he asked to the public which song they wanted and the people only replying by mentioning Reddy songs (Bomengo Ata Kala, Injustice, Mbongwana ya Guy) and Papa Wemba replying jealous that he understand that there are many songs like Mea Culpa, Petite Gina and Mere Superiere and asked once again which song they want and the public still replying with Reddy songs and Reddy Amisi ending up by finishing the concert. It were one of the moments that he got a wake-up to return to his roots and record album based on original Congolese music. Wemba then recording Foridoles and Pole Position to stay connected with his community. Another example is when he did his first Zenith in 1999, performing there with four groups (Molokai, Viva la Musica "Cour des Grands", Les Quatro and Nouvelle Ecriture). The majority of the public were people of his community coming from everywhere (UK, Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, France). So when Wemba started his concert with Molokai to perform songs from his world-albums Le Voyageur and Emotion and part of the public to the bars to get drinks and when Viva la Musica came on stage, everybody returned. Its there that Wemba officially decided to stop with world-music, what he already decided to slow down with the creation of Nouvelle Ecriture.
