Ngombeshenzi, is F1 Club still operating?

I guess  they must be operating but of late so many nice Clubs  have been developed... Mombasa Road  and South B  ....its like KIN  in Congo..., if you check in to this clubs here...you will come across so many congolese brothers and sisters...

There is Club simmers along Kenyatta Avenue...you need to visit here, Deap West, Tents, Club Wakawaka at Afya house among others and at Kenya Cinema..try Zanze.

The end of the 70's was a major step towards making the Congolese music more traditional in approaches. Bands introduced the atalakus, the sebene was born, the music gained more traditional characteristics. I think that is what you are missing now. I read that in that era, the traditinal, tribal music was strongly popularized in the cities, especially in Kinshasa. People who came from the countryside had places where they could introduce their music. Clubs and meetings were supported by the government, where people could continue their traditional music culture brought as heritage. The atalakus as band members emerged from this cultural wave. So you can see that in the 70's people were encouraged to be aware of their own inherited culture and be proud of it and continue it. And it fueled the pop music too, the effects of this could be seen on bands like Zaiko, how it changed from the 70's to 80's. Today, this encouragement is missing, and people are deviating away to foreign music. My county is in Europe and in much better situation, but the same thing is happening. If people are not aware of their heritage, they deviate towards the mainstream that is clearly not Congolese music today but MTV.

West African music is more popular, becuase it became much more well known internationally. Who knows why, possibly because of better promotion. Those countries were easier to access by music enthusiasts, and this lead to a better communication and marketing. Central Africa was a much more ignored place due to tensions I think. For example, I often find people travelling to Gambia to master the kora and balafon, but I hardly hear about anybody who dares to go to Congo to master soukous. You can hear about a lot of bad things, riots, illness, poverty. This does not do good for spreading the culture.

So you guys like upbeat rhumbas it seems and what's wrong with the piano in rhumbas? The piano is still an instrument used widely in every genre of music.

You don't understand. We don't really care about "every genre of music" but only in Congolese music. Authentic Congolese music. And the piano dilutes it badly. There are very minor exceptions like where Makaba used the piano (there real piano sound) to complement the main rhythm in a song and thereby serving as the secondary rhythm instrument with the advantage that, since it has a unique timbre, it did not cloud the guitar when sounding in the same frequency range. Yet that is taking shortcuts perhaps by lack of better ideas. Great artists like Beniko and Madoka can play up to three rhythm guitars in the same passage while all standing out distinctly. That is what Franco did with the mi-solo. That is Congolese music - rumba or sebene - with the complex interplay of the bass, two rhythm guitars a solo and mi-solo that no one else could come up with until then. And that is what we love, er, loved. Now it is all going, going, gone; to be replaced with the 'piano' (in quotes because what we hear is not a piano).

Nowadays what is played - no, inserted - is a synthetic sound (worse still, a muddy mixture of those sounds). Let me tell you about synthesizers. They are programmed by keyboard controllers hooked to computers. They are no instrument sounds but electric signals that have been squeezed and tweaked by software to give different pitches (like music instruments do) when different keys are pressed. No problem with that but they should be left alone to be used for electronic music. Not Congolese music. Trends can be chased forever and they will keep on changing and there will never be a conclusion. Synths are relatively new in the music scene but that does not mean they should be adopted by everyone, especially not for Congolese music. More emphasis should be placed on playing the music properly (by musicians) rather than doing things simply because they are fashionable. Even when musicians become expensive, all effort should be made to stay true to the sound. Didier Milla did it successfully when he got Caen Madoka to play all guitars in an album. But the true Congolese music should never have been compromised, sacrificed and murdered by the advent of the dreadful synthesizer/ keyboard.

In addition to what others have said, the embracing of the synthesizer by the Congolese musicians has contributed to the demise we are witnessing of this once beautiful music.

You don't understand. We don't really care about "every genre of music" but only in Congolese music. Authentic Congolese music. And the piano dilutes it badly. There are very minor exceptions like where Makaba used the piano (there real piano sound) to complement the main rhythm in a song and thereby serving as the secondary rhythm instrument with the advantage that, since it has a unique timbre, it did not cloud the guitar when sounding in the same frequency range. Yet that is taking shortcuts perhaps by lack of better ideas. Great artists like Beniko and Madoka can play up to three rhythm guitars in the same passage while all standing out distinctly. That is what Franco did with the mi-solo. That is Congolese music - rumba or sebene - with the complex interplay of the bass, two rhythm guitars a solo and mi-solo that no one else could come up with until then. And that is what we love, er, loved. Now it is all going, going, gone; to be replaced with the 'piano' (in quotes because what we hear is not a piano).

Nowadays what is played - no, inserted - is a synthetic sound (worse still, a muddy mixture of those sounds). Let me tell you about synthesizers. They are programmed by keyboard controllers hooked to computers. They are no instrument sounds but electric signals that have been squeezed and tweaked by software to give different pitches (like music instruments do) when different keys are pressed. No problem with that but they should be left alone to be used for electronic music. Not Congolese music. Trends can be chased forever and they will keep on changing and there will never be a conclusion. Synths are relatively new in the music scene but that does not mean they should be adopted by everyone, especially not for Congolese music. More emphasis should be placed on playing the music properly (by musicians) rather than doing things simply because they are fashionable. Even when musicians become expensive, all effort should be made to stay true to the sound. Didier Milla did it successfully when he got Caen Madoka to play all guitars in an album. But the true Congolese music should never have been compromised, sacrificed and murdered by the advent of the dreadful synthesizer/ keyboard.

In addition to what others have said, the embracing of the synthesizer by the Congolese musicians has contributed to the demise we are witnessing of this once beautiful music.
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a very informative piece !

So you guys like upbeat rhumbas it seems and what's wrong with the piano in rhumbas? The piano is still an instrument used widely in every genre of music.

You don't understand. We don't really care about "every genre of music" but only in Congolese music. Authentic Congolese music. And the piano dilutes it badly. There are very minor exceptions like where Makaba used the piano (there real piano sound) to complement the main rhythm in a song and thereby serving as the secondary rhythm instrument with the advantage that, since it has a unique timbre, it did not cloud the guitar when sounding in the same frequency range. Yet that is taking shortcuts perhaps by lack of better ideas. Great artists like Beniko and Madoka can play up to three rhythm guitars in the same passage while all standing out distinctly. That is what Franco did with the mi-solo. That is Congolese music - rumba or sebene - with the complex interplay of the bass, two rhythm guitars a solo and mi-solo that no one else could come up with until then. And that is what we love, er, loved. Now it is all going, going, gone; to be replaced with the 'piano' (in quotes because what we hear is not a piano).

Nowadays what is played - no, inserted - is a synthetic sound (worse still, a muddy mixture of those sounds). Let me tell you about synthesizers. They are programmed by keyboard controllers hooked to computers. They are no instrument sounds but electric signals that have been squeezed and tweaked by software to give different pitches (like music instruments do) when different keys are pressed. No problem with that but they should be left alone to be used for electronic music. Not Congolese music. Trends can be chased forever and they will keep on changing and there will never be a conclusion. Synths are relatively new in the music scene but that does not mean they should be adopted by everyone, especially not for Congolese music. More emphasis should be placed on playing the music properly (by musicians) rather than doing things simply because they are fashionable. Even when musicians become expensive, all effort should be made to stay true to the sound. Didier Milla did it successfully when he got Caen Madoka to play all guitars in an album. But the true Congolese music should never have been compromised, sacrificed and murdered by the advent of the dreadful synthesizer/ keyboard.

In addition to what others have said, the embracing of the synthesizer by the Congolese musicians has contributed to the demise we are witnessing of this once beautiful music.

Felo, if you lived in  Kenya precisly where i come from, I'd have invited you for lunch.Today my son and I, we were lucky to trap 17 wild quails from my sugar plantation..... tommorrow  at lunch time we are going to feast on this sweet birds. We call them in our mother dialect " Tsisindu" I am touched by your piece which is very informative . This are some of the brains we need in this world...Didier Miller 's albums are very Congolaise.

Felo, if you lived in  Kenya precisly where i come from, I'd have invited you for lunch.Today my son and I, we were lucky to trap 17 wild quails from my sugar plantation..... tommorrow  at lunch time we are going to feast on this sweet birds. We call them in our mother dialect " Tsisindu" I am touched by your piece which is very informative . This are some of the brains we need in this world...Didier Miller 's albums are very Congolaise.

Shenzi, I do live in Kenya but in Nairobi. My wife comes from your area and I know very well the taste of Tsisindu followed by a puff of Omusara. Bon apetit my brother.

Felo, if you lived in  Kenya precisly where i come from, I'd have invited you for lunch.Today my son and I, we were lucky to trap 17 wild quails from my sugar plantation..... tommorrow  at lunch time we are going to feast on this sweet birds. We call them in our mother dialect " Tsisindu" I am touched by your piece which is very informative . This are some of the brains we need in this world...Didier Miller 's albums are very Congolaise.

Shenzi, I do live in Kenya but in Nairobi. My wife comes from your area and I know very well the taste of Tsisindu followed by a puff of Omusara. Bon apetit my brother.

Kiekiekie! Omusara  is for Banyore...nice !

You can use piano or synth keyboard, just like any other instrument to create soukous-like solo. Of course you cannot play it in the manner like a guitar, yet it sounds like soukous, and not latin rumba. You just need to accomodate the soukous structure to the capabilities of the instrument. There are soukous guitar solos which use nearly single notes only. You can do such solos on any instrument. Here is a good example for that on piano:



And on synth:



In this last one they solved the solo quite well. It is true that the guitar is the best instrument to play soukous with, but sometimes replacing it with other instrument doesn't hurt, and it doesn't neccessarily mean we are out of soukous.

Here Hugo Synthe plays (@ 18.40) in acoustic mode and it sounds just as good...

 Nobody is talking about money factor in Congolese music, Passion was lost in Koffi era and after the split of original Wenge. Musicians rushed to make money and the bottom line was and has become money making in turn musicians are not taking much time to research again on their content. This is where the computerization comes in because musicians don't want to take their time.
 If Koffi is coming up with three albums in one within two years, then the question is, is there enough capacity to such albums in terms of quality assurance? Money factor here is causing musicians not to commit to strong groupings that can produce good music just because they think they can make more if they go solo.

Here Hugo Synthe plays (@ 18.40) in acoustic mode and it sounds just as good...

I would even pay him to post a tutorial of the tune he is playing at 30:40. That tune is cool, I definately referred to this approach. Who is this guy? 

This is the latest hot thing in East Africa. This gospel song is the talk of town in Nairobi, but what is the influence? go to you tube and you'll see one Kenyan commenting in quote " YOU NEVER GO WRONG WITH LINGALA BEAT" 

Nobody is talking about money factor in Congolese music, Passion was lost in Koffi era and after the split of original Wenge. Musicians rushed to make money and the bottom line was and has become money making in turn musicians are not taking much time to research again on their content. This is where the computerization comes in because musicians don't want to take their time.
 If Koffi is coming up with three albums in one within two years, then the question is, is there enough capacity to such albums in terms of quality assurance? Money factor here is causing musicians not to commit to strong groupings that can produce good music just because they think they can make more if they go solo.

True.

Here Hugo Synthe plays (@ 18.40) in acoustic mode and it sounds just as good...

I would even pay him to post a tutorial of the tune he is playing at 30:40. That tune is cool, I definately referred to this approach. Who is this guy?

The tune is cool and Hugo Synthe, a replacement for Thierry Synthe, is one the fresh talents in Wenge Maison mere; I like his swagg.

In this last one they solved the solo quite well. It is true that the guitar is the best instrument to play soukous with, but sometimes replacing it with other instrument doesn't hurt, and it doesn't neccessarily mean we are out of soukous.

In congolese music, the synth actually replaces a harmonica and not necessarily a solo guitar but what happens is that when the synth is played, it's louder than the guitars, such parts in sebene are to break down the sebene a bit especially to do some solo dances or syncronized dance moves by those on stage.
It is not a problem when a synth is used for a short period but not when it's used for an extended period of time because it means the guitars are pauzed so it's just the synth and drums playing and sometimes that can be annoying especially because most bands set the synth volume output on high!