Nico Kasanda, born in 1939 in Belgian Congo, was a pioneer of soukous music. He’s also known as Docteur Nico. In the young age of 14, he started playing in the group ‘Le Grand Kallé et l’African Jazz’ and became an influential guitarist, as a meeting with Jimi Hendrix shows. He already died in 1985 in Belgium. Listen to his piece “Zadio”:
Tabu Ley Rochereau, born in 1940, is a musician from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He’s well known for internationalising his african rumba and soukous music, together with Dr Nico Kasanda. Listen to his nice piece “Mokolo Nakokufa”:
Kaysha, born in Kinshasa 1974, is a pop, R&B and rap musician who immigrated to France. He already won some awards, e.g. the Kora Award for the best African artist in 2000. Here’s his song “Si tu veux de moi”:
Updated song:
A great one this afternoon, although I can’t find anything about them. But in their song “Maaro“, Fitt Band Experience, a reggae gruop, are singing about Africa and it’s political leaders(e.g. Thomas Sankara, Lumumba), problems and politics. If you know more about this excellent group, please contact me! And the YouTube video is 2 minutes too long… ;)
From African´s Rumba Country, Roga Roga came with “Les Gouts et les Couleurs”
Updated song:
Staff Benda Bilili are a group of Congolese street musicians living around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa, and playing music which is rooted in rumba, with elements of old-school rhythm’n'blues and reggae. The core of the band consists of four senior singers/guitarist, who are all disabled (they suffered from poliomyelitis when they were young) and move around in spectacularly customized tricycles. I made the album Tres Tres Fort as a christmas gift for my mother, so I couldn’t post this earlier, and here’s the song “Moto Moindo“:
This was a Music-Suggestion from Zdenko!
Missa Luba is a group singing congolese songs in the latin mass. Here’s their song “Kyrie“:
Baloji is a Congolese Belgian musician. Here’s his song “Le Jour d’après“:
