We’re all against tribalism but its a fact that the colonizers took different groups and hunched them together. Just seen a thread about how Fally is proud to be Mongo and I always hear that. What other ethnic groups are our other superstars from? Just inquiring not trying to start any wars ndekos 

Werra is a Bayaka which is a "under group" of Bakongo, since Bakongo has a mother lineage and back in the days people from the same ethnicity (ethnicity of Bakongo like Nelukeni, Kimpanzu Mbau etc.) couldn't marry between their own ethnic group, so whole the people who didn't respect that rule became Bayaka, from southwest a "second class Bakongo's even though has passed a lot of time, you will notice some difference between " real Bakongo" and Bayaka for example Bayaka are less strict and have less problem to enjoy life, while "pure Bakongo" are a little bit more sever and focus on things like school and really doesn't consider music or arts in general a big thing, a lot of Bakongo people most of the times are credited to the place of power or the place where intelligence plays a big part.
Then Werra's brother JB is a Muluba and they speak tshiluba which is an ethnic group in the east that is considered a bit like the funny guy, or sometimes the guys which are not to trust, can't reay described them since I am a Bakongo but most of the time they are very col layback and very active on the tradition for example there is a luba traditional marriage that if you broke up with cheating it will lead yo direct death.
Then there is Fally which is a Mangala/Mongo Mangala are the people who speak lingala, lingala that has been made popular by Mobutu that really wanted to make Congo with people who would not lost African language so he used is own as the lingua franca (Lingala) allowing the other three (KiKongo, Swahili, Tshiluba) to being used instead if french.
Mongo is like a very very difficult lingala with totally different words Falanga instead of Mbongo and so on.
They have the reputation of being very harsh if they have to say something to you without holding it back
Then Ferre is a Bakongo but he has been raised in Kin so I guess his mentality it is like a Mangala.
Then ar the Swahili people like Brigadiera and Capucino and they are very free in mentality, not strict but also not excessively layback, cool, chill easy, you can talk about them easily and it is very hard to hear them doing something bad since they always try to search the right road for things.
Lobeso, Mabele Elisi, Fally, I think are mongo
Werra is a Bayaka,
Metrau, Gentaa Bakongo
JB, Liboka, Heritier, Bill if I don't get wrong are Tshiluba
Brigade, Cappuccino are Swahili.
Not sure about the other leaders/singers/musician ethnicity

Learning about the bayakas is just as confusing as learning about the bateke. The older i get the more i realized that we gave the colonizers too much power, they didnt even speak our languages and yet they classified us based on languages, observations and other means that they just were not prepared for. They classified us from one another without knowing much about us and then stuck us together hence why we have so many conflicts in africa. Because the country boundaries are similar to a forced marriage.

Also didnt know Capucino and Brigade were swahili. Seems like that group is forgotten about a lot of times. You always hear bout the Bakongo, Lubas and Bangalas/Mongos/Tetelas

@Manzambi94

Ba is plural in for bantu-tribes and Mu singular, ki/tshi is to indicate the language. Bakongo/Mukongo/Kikongo.

Bayaka were big warriors in the Kongo-Kingdom and were living in the Kwango-region. They were very strong in witchcraft. They started a rebellion against the Kongo-kingdom and destroyed Mbanza Kongo in 1568, which was the capital of the Kingdom. King Alvaro I had to ask the Portugese for help, who were then bannished and sold the region of Luanda to them. They won against the Yaka, but from then the Portugese domination came back.

Here you got the story about the Yaka-tribe in French.

http://www.kaowarsom.be/documents/MEMOIRES_VERHANDELINGEN/Sciences_morales_politique/Hum.Sc.(IRCB)_T.IX,1_VAN%20WING%20R.%20P.%20J._Etudes%20Bakongo-Religion%20et%20magie_1938.pdf


Alot of tribes from the ex'Bandundu province (now Kwango and Kwilu) descend form the Kongo-tribe. But they escaped the Kongo-Kingdom, when the Portugese people were doing razzia's to take alot of slaves. So they went to the Kwango and Kwilu region (the  Yaka's were already living there). Then they became part of the big Lunda-Empire and they got influenced by them. Which made them adopt names like Kasongo, Kongolo, etc, which are normally names of the Lunda(Aruund) and Luba's. This all made them distance more from the Bakongo and starting to make to create their own culture and community. Which explain why Bakongo and people from Bandundu aren't close to each other. Otherwise they would be also part of the Abako.



You got 2 different Luba's. Baluba-Katanga (also known as Baluba-Kat) and Baluba-Kasai(which people from Katanga calls Kasaien). Kiluba(Katanga) and Tshiluba (Kasai) are different from each other. But the most Baluba-kat speak Shawili.


The Shawili-tribe doesn't exist in Kongo. There were alot of tribes in the province of Katanga, Kivu and Oriental and they had not a language to communicatie to each other. So the Belgians decided to put Shawili as languagues form those regions, since that Arabic slave-traders from Zanzibar who were looking for slaves in Congo were speaking. Normally people of Kasai had to speak also Shawili, but the Luba's refused. So the Belgians decided put Tshiluba as languague of Kasai. With people of the then big Leopoldville-province (Kongo-Central, Kinshasa & Bandundu) having Kikongo ya l'Etat (aka Munu Kutuba) as langague. People from Kongo-Central (Bas Congo) didn't like it, except Matadi & Boma.Kikongo ya l'Etat  dissapeard slowly from Kinshasa, when Mobutu came on the power in 1965.

In this tread I talked a little bit about the tribes of artists, since that Toolz asked about it.

http://congovibes.com/congolese-music/areas-of-musicians/

The link I sended was wrong. That link was about how Mr Wing was seeing the Bakongo and the way they were explaining their religion (Bokoko).

This is the link about the history of the Yaka-tribe

http://www.kaowarsom.be/documents/MEMOIRES_VERHANDELINGEN/Sciences_morales_politique/Hum.Sc.(IRCB)_T.III,1_PLANCQUAERT%20M._Les%20jaga%20et%20les%20bayaka%20du%20Kwango_1932.pdf

Would really like to know where Koffi Olomide, Felix Wazekwa and Blaise Bula are from.

Mvulusi could you expand a little bit more on why bakongos didnt wanna speak munukutuba and how lingala won the congo bassin region over. Ive always been curious about that. I understand mobutu had a lot to do with it but it seems that lingala was already the major language before him.

Would really like to know where Koffi Olomide, Felix Wazekwa and Blaise Bula are from.

Wazekwa is a Mukongo (Muntandu a subtribe of the Kongo-tribe), Koffi Olomide's mother is 50% Sierra Leone, 50% Mutetela and his father is 50% Nigerian and 50% Ngbandi. About Blaise Bula I don't know some say that he is Budja other say that he is a mukongo

Mvulusi could you expand a little bit more on why bakongos didnt wanna speak munukutuba and how lingala won the congo bassin region over. Ive always been curious about that. I understand mobutu had a lot to do with it but it seems that lingala was already the major language before him.

I will explain it later if I finished work

Do we know where modogo and reddy amisi are from? As well as madilu and lita bembo?

Do we know where modogo and reddy amisi are from? As well as madilu and lita bembo?

Reddy Amisi is a Mumbala. Modogo is from the ex'Bandundu province, but I don't know which tribe. Madilu is a Mukongo(Mumbeko). Lita Bembo is Ekonda,if i'm right.

 

Would really like to know where Koffi Olomide, Felix Wazekwa and Blaise Bula are from.

Wazekwa is a Mukongo (Muntandu a subtribe of the Kongo-tribe), Koffi Olomide's mother is 50% Sierra Leone, 50% Mutetela and his father is 50% Nigerian and 50% Ngbandi. About Blaise Bula I don't know some say that he is Budja other say that he is a mukongo

Wow@ Koffi's ancestry. I know some people who go to DRC for business and Koffi would host them whenever they are in Kinshasa. Especially if he hears they are from the Yoruba tribe of South-West, Nigeria so I was very curious about knowing his roots. Thank you Mr Mvulusi.

Mvulusi could you expand a little bit more on why bakongos didnt wanna speak munukutuba and how lingala won the congo bassin region over. Ive always been curious about that. I understand mobutu had a lot to do with it but it seems that lingala was already the major language before him.

I don't how it is in Brazzaville. But in DR Congo, the bakongo's see Munukutaba as a foreign langue, a langue of imposters. If you go to cities like Kimpese, Mbanza-Ngungu, Luozi, Kisantu & Kasangulu,you will hear nobody speak it. Only their own dialect (Kitandu, Kimanianga, Kindibu, Kimboma), since there doesn't exist a official/standard Kikongo. They only speak it in Boma & Matadi, were you got the harbors and in the past also Leopoldville(Kinshasa) before it dissapeard. Munukutuba is a patios of French, Kikongo and Lingala. It was created by Bangala's who went to work in Boma, since that they couldn't express themselves very well in Kikongo. And it got developed whenthey started to build the traintrack of Matadi-Kinshasa.

That's also one of the reasons why Nzenza Landu created ABAKO in 1955. One of his plans were to create a original Kikongo-language, which had to replace the fake Kikongo "Munu Kutuba". By getting officials from every district of Kongo-Central and making a symbiosis of all those dialects. But didn't got the chance the chance to do it, despite having Kasa-Vubu later as president.

Lingala was the official language of the colonial army (Force Publique). In the beginning only people from Equateur were talking Lingala in Kinshasa with the Bakongo seeing them as foreigners and not liking. Calling them "Les Gens de Hauts" or "Muvila". Lingala became really popular in Kinshasa after the Second World War, when the soldiers came back. But they were speaking Hindou-Bill, which a diffrent then the original Lingala and language of gansters. All the youngsters of that time wanted to talk it, since that they saw them as hero's. The influence became stronger with the Lingala-music. Those old Bakongo-people were scared to lose "their ground ground" and their language with the Lingala-influence being big. The last 5 years before the independence a big rivalery started between Bakongo'and Bangala. With Belgians supporting Bangala, since they weren't happy with Nzenza Landu's plan to proclaim the independence of Kongo-Central (including Leopoldville). Because their desire was to bring the Kongo-Kingdom back if Angola and Congo Brazza would became indepent in the future. That's why they supported Holden Roberto's FLNA, who had the same idea's in the beginning (proclaim the independence of North-Angola and being the Kongo-Kingdom back in a later stadium). Fulbert Yulu who would became Congo-Brazzaville's first president supported them also, since that he was a Mukongo (Mulari) and supported both parties financially. He helped Kasa-Vubu, Nzenza Landu and Pinzi out of prison, who were arrested after the riots of 4 January 1959, when the Belgians cancelled ABAKO's meeting at YMCA. The days before the independence Belgians created conflicts between Baluba and Balulua, People from Katanga against the Baluba-Kasai who were living there and Bakongo against Bayaka. In order to leave the country in a big chaos. The days before the indepence their was a big conflict about putting the official language of Kinshasa (Leopoldville) with Bakongo's wanting to put Kikongo as official language, with the reason that they were the most represented in the city at that time 55%, but other tribes refusing. In 1965 when Mobutu came to power he forbad all political parties and tribal association wanting to create a nationalistic country. He promoted Lingala alot, espcially after the time of l'Authenticite (1973). Which made Lingala getting popular in the whole country. But people of the east prefered Shawili. But in Bas-Congo Lingala dominated so much the Kikongo started to dissapear even in villages.

Mvulusi how it is the situation of KiKongo now? It is still used? Because one of my biggest fear being a MuKongo it is that KiKongo might disappear like many other African languages