James Brown, Franco Luambo Makiadi, BB King, Tabu Ley Rocherau, Miriam Makeba, Abeti Masikini, Manu Dibangu, Celia Cruz & Fania All Stars performing at Zaire 74. Zaire 74 was a 3-day music festival at that took place from 22 to 24 september 1974 at Stade de 20 Mai (nowadays Stade Tata Raphael). The festival was meant as a promotional event for the  heavyweight boxing championship match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, known as The Rumble in the Jungle. Because of George Foreman getting injured, the match got postponed to october 30th.
 

I excepted some festivities in Kinshasa to remember the event, since that it was the biggest event that Congo ever had, but it seems that nothing was planned yesterday



It's crazy that they didn't pick Zaiko Langa Langa and Lita Bembo for the sountrack nor the documentary, who also performed at the festival.
 

James Brown came in 1972 to Kinshasa for the first time, Kasssav came in 1987 for series concerts, Johnny Hallyday in 1968, Jimmy Cliff in 1987 and Zouk Machine in 1989. But these music events can't top Zaire '74 nor the Miss Europe event that got hosted in Kinshasa (1968) or when the Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins came to Kinshasa in 1969 for the Apollo World Tour.

Say what you want about the man, but Mobutu heavily promoted the arts and sports in Zaire even gifting musicians money and cars, yeah there were caveats like performing at private parties, state dinners, and even campaigning for him.  But he had the charisma and the influence to bring such events to Kinshasa.  Until Fatshi's or future governments put more emphasis into the arts as a whole and not just popular band leaders, I think you'll see a resurgence of such events.  In retrospect, L'authenticité, despite its authoritarian foundation, was probably the best thing to happen to Congo's culture.

Hell no too many legendary black figures under one roof once in a life time type thing