Soukous

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Soukous is a musical genre that originated in the Congos during the 1930s and early 1940s, and which has gained popularity throughout Africa. Soukous was the name of a dance that was popular in the late 1960s, and danced to an African variant of rumba music, although the word soukous has come to refer to the subsequent developments of the genre. Soukous is called Congo music in English-speaking West Africa, and lingala in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania - referring to the Lingala language of the region from which the music originated. Soukous is also sometimes called kwassa kwassa, which is a rhythmic dance that was popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as ndombolo, a variant of kwassa kwassa that is currently popular.

1 Origins
2 The big bands
3 Zaiko generation
4 The Paris scene
5 Ndombolo
6 Footnotes
7 See also
8 External links

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Origins

Image:Franco5.jpg In the late 1930s and early 1940s in the Congos, musicians developed a music uniquely Congolese. This music was based on traditional Congolese music, West African highlife music, as well as Cuban and other Caribbean and South American sounds - rhythms that were not entirely foreign to Congo, having been founded to varying degrees on musical traditions from the area. A precursor to soukous emerged in the 1940s in the cities of Boma, Matadi, Kinshasa and Brazzaville. Most of the musicians performed in Lingala language, but some also used Swahili, Tshiluba and Kikongo.

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The big bands

By the 1950s, big bands had become the preferred format, using acoustic bass guitar, multiple electric guitars, conga drums, maracas, scraper, flute or clarinet, saxophones, and trumpet. Franco et le TP OK Jazz (TP OK Jazz) and Le Grand Kalle et l'African Jazz (African Jazz) became the leading orchestras.

In the 1950s and 1960s some artists who had been groomed in the big bands of Franco Luambo and Grand Kalle formed their own bands. Tabu Ley Rochereau and Dr Nico Kasanda formed African Fiesta and transformed their music further by fusing elements of Congolese folk music with soul music, as well as Caribbean and Latin beats and instrumentation. They were joined by Papa Wemba and Sam Mangwana, and classics like Afrika Mokili Mobimba made them one of Africa's greatest bands, rivalled only by TP OK Jazz. Tabu Ley Rochereau and Dr Nico Kasanda are considered the pioneers of modern soukous.

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Zaiko generation

Image:Zaiko poster.jpg While the influence of rumba became stronger in some orchestras, including Lipua-Lipua, Veve, TP OK Jazz and Bella Bella, younger Congolese musicians looked for ways to reduce the rumba influence and play a faster paced soukous, inspired by rock n roll. A band of students calling themselves Zaiko Langa Langa came together in 1969. The high energy of their music, and the high-fashion sense of the singers and dancers, inspired by founding vocalist Papa Wemba, made them very popular. Pepe Kalle, Grand Kalle's protégé, created the band Empire Bakuba together with Papy Tex, and they soon became Kinshasa's most popular youth band, equaled only by Zaiko Langa Langa.

Other greats of the Zaiko generation include Koffi Olomide, Tshala Muana and Wenge Musica. Soukous now spread across Africa, and became an influence on virtually all the styles of modern African popular music, including highlife, palm-wine music, taarab and makossa.

As political conditions in the DR Congo deteriorated in the 1970s, some groups made their way to Nairobi, Kenya. By the mid-seventies, several Congolese groups were playing rumba music at Kenyan night clubs. The fast paced cavacha, a dance craze that swept East and Central Africa during the seventies, was popularized through recordings of bands such as Zaiko Langa Langa and Orchestra Shama Shama, influencing Kenyan musicians. This fast paced rhythm, played on the snare drum or hi-hat, quickly became a hallmark of the Congolese sound in Nairobi and is frequently used by many of the regional bands. Several of Nairobi's renowned Swahili rumba bands formed around Tanzanian musicians-groups like Simba Wanyika and its offshoots, Les Wanyika and Super Wanyika Stars.

The late 1970s, Virgin records got involved in a couple of projects in Nairobi that produced two acclaimed LPs from the Tanzanian-Congolese group, Orchestra Makassy and the Kenya-based band, Super Mazembe. About this same time, the French label Afro Rythmes had just released Orchestra Virunga's Malako LP recorded in Nairobi. One of the tracks from this album was the Swahili song Shauri Yako (It's Your Problem), which became a hit all over East Africa.

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The Paris scene

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In the 1980s soukous became popular in London and Paris. A few more musicians left Kinshasa to work around central and east Africa, before settling in either the UK or France. The basic line-up for a Soukous band included three or four guitars, bass guitar, drums, brass, vocals, and some of them having over 20 musicians, lyrics were often in Lingala and occasionally in French. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Parisian studios were used by many big stars, and the music became heavily reliant on synthesizers and other electronic instruments. Some artists continued to record for the Congolese market, but others abandoned the demands of the Kinshasa public and set out to pursue new audiences. Some, like Paris-based Papa Wemba maintained two bands, Viva la Musica for soukous, and a group including French session players for his international pop.

Kanda Bongo Man, another Paris-based artist, pioneered fast-paced, short dance tracks suitable for play on dance floors everywhere, and popularily known as Kwassa kwassa after the dance moves popularized by his music videos and South African mbaqanga. This music appealed to Africans and to new audiences as well. Groups like Diblo Dibala, Mbilia Bel, Yondo Sister, Loketo, Rigo Star, Madilu System, Soukous Stars and veterans like Pepe Kalle and Koffi Olomide followed suit. Soon Paris became home to talented studio musicians who recorded for the African and Caribbean markets and filling out bands for occasional tours.

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Ndombolo

Just like Kwassa Kwassa, the rhythmic dance craze that accompanied the music of Kanda Bongo Man, Loketo and Diblo Dibala in the 1980s and early 1990s, the fast paced soukous music now dominating dance floors in central and eastern Africa is called soukous ndombolo, performed by Awilo Longomba, Aurlus Mabele, Koffi Olomide and others.

The hip-swinging, booty-shaking dance to the fast pace of soukous ndombolo has come under criticism amid charges that it is obscene. There have been attempts to ban it in Mali, Cameroon and Kenya. After an attempt to ban it from state radio and television in DR Congo in 2000, it became even more popular. On 11 February, 2005 ndombolo music videos in DR Congo were censored for indecency, and video clips by Koffi Olomide, JB M'Piana and Werrason were banned from the airwaves.Template:Ref Template:Ref Template:Ref