The first song is about a woman who had a relationship with a guy living in Europe, waiting years long in Kinshasa for his arrival to get married with him and move to Europe. Then when the moment came, the whole family came to the Ndjili-airport to wait for his arrival, but on the last minute they received a telegram from that guy who said that he won't come anymore, because he decided to marry with another woman (who was living in Europe like him). The family then returned back home and the girl started crying the whole night, couldn't sleep and started to think about all those years she wasted.
The story of this used to happen often and still happens often. I know 7 women who went throught this.
The song was dedicated to donor Serge Kassanda ('aka Serkas), who is the diamond business. Its duet of Papa Wemba and Reddy Amisi with both doing the chorus along with Dindo Yogo and Djuna Djanana being the MC during the sebene. What I like of this song is that there aren't vocals who are off-topic or vocals with just names. The song is from the Ziggy-album of 1996.
The second song is about a guy (Reddy himself taking the role) living in Europe, who had a girlfriend called Aimee who was living Kinshasa. Aimee had to wait to join him in Europe, but later on he discovered that Aimee was cheating on him, which made the relationship coming to an end. The guy would suffer of lovesickness, wanting to be next to her and his thoughts are letting his body suffer (he lost alot of weight), not knowing with who he could share his pain and cry. From then he was only hearing the name of Aimee from far (other people who are informing him about her) and he started thinking about the advices his elders gave, who said that "Kinshasa is not a city to let your love alone, to wait for you" and knowing from then what it means to be in love with some, adding that loving from someone from far is like a rope, that's getting broken.
I like Maika Munan guitar-arrangement and the chorus in the start of the song. The song got alot of emotions. The song is from the Etoile-album (1998), but it got already released in 1997 on the Best of Reddy Amisi-compilation as bonus, which included alternate versions of his songs from the Injustice-album and Queen Lina-album.
I know two guys who went through thos. One guy was doing his best to get his ex'wife in Europe, but his requests for a visa got rejected twice. The woman got then tired and became pregnant of a twin from another guy.
This song is off-topic, but I like it, because it happens sometimes in Congolese families. Its about a guy who felt in love with his pretty cousin, not knowing what to do, being scared that his mother will hear about it, knowing that she would "say, beware that is the child of your oncle".Later on, the secret would be discovered, people starting to point the finger to him everywhere where he walks, because he didn't respect the rule (Ekila). But he says to his cousin that she has not to forget him, thinking about what he can do to transform himself to someone from a different family in order to get marreid with her.
(In tribes like the Luba, if you have sex with your relatives, you will be cursed automatically "tshibawu" and it will be difficult to get your life on rails again. Having also to go through a traditional exorcism , which often goes wrong and the family having before the moment to humilate you, being forced to eat a whole chicken during the moment. Some people are banned from the family, after that moment.)
I think that the goal of this song, is to motivate families to let all their cousins know from their little age and let them grow up together, to avoid those incidents. Instead of letting them know when they are teenagers.
The song is a duet of Papa Wemba and Reddy Amisi with Nouvelle Ecriture being on the chorus and Maika Munan on the keyboards. The song ends with a traditional Mongo-sebene, having Ramazani on the lead.
