What is Congolese Rhumba?

[amf]

For decades, music has been a focal point of Congolese culture. From the Latin-influenced Congolese Rhumba of the fifties and sixties, to the contemporary Ndombolo, music has played a central role and, because of its success on the international music scene, been an important source of national pride. Congolese music's twangy guitar, the "animateurs" with names such as Bill Clinton who incite the crowd with their frenzied whistling, and the gyrating dancers which are key to every band, have become one of Congo's biggest exports.....Get More Information

According to Wikipedia:

Rhumba is both a family of music rhythms and a dance style that originated in Africa and traveled via the slave trade to Cuba and the New World. The so-called Rhumba rhythm, a variation of the African standard pattern or clave rhythm, is the additive grouping of an eight pulse bar (one 4/4 measure) into 3+3+2 or, less often, 3+5 (van der Merwe 1989, p.321).

It's variants include the bossa nova rhythm. Original Cuban Rhumba is highly polyrhythmic, and as such is often far more complex than the examples cited above.

This Wikipedia information is disputed - get the details in Wikipedia |

Soukous Stars Performing Franco's Rumba Classic -- 'Infidelite Mado'

[MUANA MBOKA]

I think modern Congolese Rhumba should have been given another name alltogether,it's completely different from the original Cuban rhumba though the rhythm in some of the music is a little bit similar for example some songs of Congolese artist JB Mpiana have a distinct Cuban rhythm(songs like Nungu Nungu from the album Anti Terro and Alino Kizaza in the album Kipe Ya Yo).

In my opinion,i believe there are several different kinds of Congolese music and rhythms for example music of the late Grand Maitre Luambo Makiadi can be classified as Jazz and i believe it's the reason why he called his band Le T.P.O.K Jazz Band.

[MUANA MBOKA]

Although he classed his music as Jazz,Franco also did some contemporary Rhumba,watch this below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3tFfuK2bXE


Le Grand Maitre Lumbo Makiadi & Le T.P.O.K Jazz Band with Madilu on lead vocals,my favourite song of all time!

The next song is Maya with Carlyto Lassa on lead vocals.This song was composed by Luambo's right hand man and now leader of Bana OK Band,Lutumba Simaro,this was a classic too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85t2P6OHYFQ

[EMOBCBGIQUE]

Although he classed his music as Jazz,Franco also did some contemporary Rhumba,watch this below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3tFfuK2bXE


Le Grand Maitre Lumbo Makiadi & Le T.P.O.K Jazz Band with Madilu on lead vocals,my favourite song of all time!

The next song is Maya with Carlyto Lassa on lead vocals.This song was composed by Luambo's right hand man and now leader of Bana OK Band,Lutumba Simaro,this was a classic too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85t2P6OHYFQ

This was just ''bad''. I watch it on Mobi TV one of our local TV stations were they show it for intertainment.

[MUANA MBOKA]

Luambo and Papa Lutumba were a great team,it's unfortunate that Luambo's family did not want Lutumba continue running T.P.O.K including it's assets,they preferred Madilu to take over.
Papa Lutumba has been struggling though he still remains as one of the greatest composers and guitarists in Congo.

[bolingo]

I don't know how to classify Congolese music.  I have my own labels and some of them are just dance styles but they work for me.

Rhumba - the classic music of Franco, Dr. Nico, Tabu Ley, Zaiko, Sam Mangwana, Papa Weba, the new Kekele, etc.

Cavacha - The 70's hits of the then young turks like Veve, Lipua Lipua, Shama Shama, KIAM, Grand Piza, Les Kamale, Les Kinois, etc.

Soukous - Les Quatro Etoiles, Soukous Stars, Kanda Bongo Man, Loketo, etc.

Ndombolo - Koffi, Wenge, Defao, etc.

Don't know what to call these young folks that have branched from the koffi/wenge clans.  They don't have their distinct sound yet.

And, of course, all of this is rhumba and i love it.

[EMOBCBGIQUE]

I don't know how to classify Congolese music.  I have my own labels and some of them are just dance styles but they work for me.

Bolingo U have classified it rightly. I would like to have a sub-genere in Ndombolo which is Rhumba - the slow congo music.

For the young generation that has come from Koffi et wenge, they are singing a mixture of Rhumba and Ndombolo/Ngwasuma. Fally Ipupa especially and Ferre are into Rhumba while the likes of Bill Clinton are into Ndombolo.

[amf]

Rumba (Congolese) Overview: By - Ken Braun

Many people think of rumba as quintessentially Cuban—and the drum-driven dance music played by groups like Los Muñequitos de Matanzas certainly is that—but rumba neither began in Cuba nor ended there. Debate about its origin persists in some quarters, but Africans assert that rumba came first from Africa and most Cubans agree. One theory posits that the word rumba derives from nkumba, which means "waist" in KiKongo, a Central African language, and refers also to a social dance that joins couples at the waist. According to this account, slaves from Central Africa carried the word, dance and its accompanying rhythms and songs to the Americas. The majority of Africans brought to Cuba during the four-century-long Atlantic slave trade did in fact come from the Congo. Rumba and other Cuban styles evince such strong Congolese characteristics that only obstinacy prevents some listeners from hearing the connections.

But what Congolese call rumba is different from nkumba and from what Cubans call rumba. Rumba Congo is indeed rooted in traditional Congolese music but it is distinctly modern, and while the Cuban influence is crucial it is far from absolute. Cuban music returned to the Congo via phonograph records, which became available in the region's cities in the 1930s. In the sounds emanating from those shellac grooves—the rhythms, the way singers called and choruses responded—Congolese listeners recognized their own music made new. Local musicians had already begun adapting imported instruments to indigenous forms, but records by Trio Matamoros, Sexteto Habanero, Septeto Nacional and other Cuban groups taught them how to combine the elements to make music that was at once modern, cosmopolitan and deeply familiar.

Congolese musicians started playing Cuban songs, mimicking the Spanish lyrics or replacing them with verses in their own languages and composing original songs in Cuban styles. Records produced in Léopoldville (the Belgian Congo) and Brazzaville (the French Congo) in the 40s and 50s confirm, however, that the early stars of rumba Congo never merely imitated Cuban music. Paul Kamba, Antoine Wendo, Henri Bowane, Kallé Kabasele and other artists of their generation created a new sound. They called it rumba but used a variety of rhythms and song structures, some recognizably Latin, some not. Their melodies followed the tones and accents of Lingala and other local languages instead of Spanish. They favored clarinets or saxophones over flutes and trumpets, and above all they featured guitars. In Congolese rumba, guitars—usually in pairs or threes—covered all the parts that the guitar, the trés, the violins and the piano played in Cuban music. And when innovative guitarists such as Franco, Dr. Nico and Papa Noel took up electric guitars in the mid-'50s, Congolese rumba further distinguished itself from its Cuban antecedent.

Yet Cuban music—and music from Puerto Rico, Haiti and Latin New York, too—influenced Congolese musicians for decades. On the cusp of 1960 (the year that both the Belgian Congo and the French Congo became independent), Kallé Kabasele and his Orchestre African Jazz summed up the sound and the spirit of the times in the title of their famous "Indépendence Cha Cha." They based their theme song, "African Jazz Mokili Mobimba," on an old Cuban son done up mambo-style, with Dr. Nico and his brother Dechaud playing the flute, violin and piano montuno parts on their electric guitars. Tabu Ley Rochereau wrote and sang many of his early songs in pseudo-Spanish. Les Bantous de la Capitale recorded Moises Simons' "El Manicero" (renaming it "Mayeya"), Franco and his O.K. Jazz recorded Eddie Palmieri's "Café," and both bands performed original mambos, cha-cha-chas, boleros and pachangas through the '60s. Sam Mangwana (the only notable Congolese singer who could actually speak some Spanish) imbued his vocal style with the accents and phrasings of Cuban singers like Beny Moré and New Yorkers like Tito Rodriguez.

In the '70s, while the People's Republic of Congo (formerly the French Congo) strengthened ties with Fidel Castro's Cuba, the anti-Communist Mobutu regime in Zaire (as Mobutu renamed the former Belgian Congo) banned Cuban imports, including records, and decreed that only Zairean music could be aired on radio and television. But politics notwithstanding, it is the nature of musical styles to change over time, and so the popular music of Kinshasa (once Léopoldville) and Brazzaville progressed in new directions, away from Havana. Musicians still mined Congolese traditions for raw material, but now the models for their finished product were more often American rock and funk than Cuban music. The generic term rumba gave way to the names of dances too numerous and ephemeral to recount.

However, Latin influences never faded altogether. Every musician had to be familiar with Cuban music if he was to make contemporary Congolese/Zairean music with the right savor. Rising stars such as Nyboma and Papa Wemba were ardent fans of Latin music while established figures like Tabu Ley and Sam Mangwana continued to compose rumba as well as new inventions. But rumba was considered old-fashioned, and so, apparently, were some of its qualities. A succession of brash new sounds kept Kinshasa nightlife bustling through the '70s and '80s, but few could sustain much lasting engagement. The soukous that Congolese and Zairean musicians produced in Paris studios in the '80s and '90s sported an urbane sophistication but rarely achieved the casual elegance of older rumba.

Congolese rumba is currently enjoying a renaissance. The revivalists' patriarch is Papa Noel Nedule Montswet, the acclaimed guitarist who has played with more than a few of the greatest Congolese bands and solo artists of the past 50 years. Playing an acoustic guitar, he and singer Sam Mangwana made an album in 1998, Galo Negro, that presented new songs composed and arranged in the classic rumba Congo style. Subsequently they toured Europe and North America with a band that included an accordionist (the accordion having been a popular instrument in mid-20th-century Congo but rarely heard there since then). Papa Noel went on to record two albums with Cuban artists, then gathered a half-dozen middle-aged Congolese veterans into a new group called Kékélé. Along with peers such as guitarists Mose Fan Fan and Dizzy Mandjeku and singers Samba Mapangala and Ricardo Lemvo, Kékélé has attracted enthusiastic European and American audiences that never heard Congolese rumba in its heyday. However, these émigrés have not yet rekindled much interest back in Congo, where ndombolo stars enthrall urban youth. But rumba Congo is not entirely forgotten in Kinshasa and Brazzaville, where pioneers such as Wendo and Moundanda, now in their 70s, still perform on special occasions. — Ken Braun

Nyoka Longo & Zaiko Langa Langa

[EMOBCBGIQUE]

I don't know how to classify Congolese music.  I have my own labels and some of them are just dance styles but they work for me.

Rhumba - the classic music of Franco, Dr. Nico, Tabu Ley, Zaiko, Sam Mangwana, Papa Weba, the new Kekele, etc.

Cavacha - The 70's hits of the then young turks like Veve, Lipua Lipua, Shama Shama, KIAM, Grand Piza, Les Kamale, Les Kinois, etc.

Soukous - Les Quatro Etoiles, Soukous Stars, Kanda Bongo Man, Loketo, etc.

Ndombolo - Koffi, Wenge, Defao, etc.

Don't know what to call these young folks that have branched from the koffi/wenge clans.  They don't have their distinct sound yet.

And, of course, all of this is rhumba and i love it.

Cavacha??? never heard of this before. And hey, Koffi should be in his Tchacho group and not Ndombolo. Ndombolo is Wenge and then probably Defao.

[Rickky421]

Franco:

http://www.jujunation.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=6086&title=Congo___Franco___Mario

http://www.jujunation.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=5245&title=Congo___Franco___OK_Jazz___Chacun_Pour_Soi

http://www.jujunation.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=6091&title=Congo___Franco___Tres_Fache

http://www.jujunation.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=5250&title=Congo___Franco___OK_Jazz___Masikini