Obviously, to name a fruit that is not originally found in Congo, most of the time people will use the name used in the country it comes from or make a ciluba version of the french term to call it. But still, here’s a few terms.
Real Name: Élizabeth Tshala Muana Muidikayi
Nick Name: Queen of mutuashi
Profession: Singer, songwriter, dancer
Birth Place: May 13, 1958
Place of Birth: Élisabethville (Lubumbashi), Katanga, Congo Belge
Tshala Muana is the most prominent Congolese artist to sing in Ciluba language. She made plethora of recordings. Here’s a non-exhaustive discography. I don’t think it is 100% accurate, especially the release dates, but it will give you as rough idea. So if you happen to have an official record in your hands, please correct me if I’m wrong. In bold letters are the songs in Ciluba. If not indicated otherwise, the default language of the song would be Lingala.
Tracklist Tutu (Bibi Dens Tshibayi)
Yaya We (Bibi Dens Tshibayi) Kuwaya (Bibi Dens Tshibayi) Kumpu Moyo (Bibi Dens Tshibayi) Kudiambi (Bibi Dens Tshibayi) Eyo (Bibi Dens Tshibayi)
Bukasa (Leon Bukasa)
Badibamba (Kapia Mukenga) Mukalenga (Bibi Dens Tshibayi)
The Bantu are thought to have originated from the the area of Nigeria/Cameroon, and started their expansion East and South about 5,000 years ago (3,000 BC). They reached the equatorial rain forest 3500 years ago, entering what is now Uganda, 3000 years ago. It is people of this ancestry that comprised the bulk of the slaves transported across the Atlantic, and most black Americans can trace their ancestry to West and West-central Africa.
Bantu farming
The success of the Bantu was to do with farming. In a pattern repeated the world over throughout history, the farming people expand relatively quickly into lands occupied by hunter gatherers, displacing them, and absorbing a small number of them into their population. Prior to 3000 BC the population of sub Saharan Africa looked like the Khoisan people. The Bantu underwent a recent, massive, population explosion and are now numerically superior. If you went back in…
– Is your photographic art work committed to dealing with the context in which you live?
My work questions the still existing traces of colonisation in Congolese society. In this approach, it expresses a desire to inform and rewrite a story from the present. A present aware of his past and ready to assume the future.
– How does your photography integrate the evolution of your society
Although colonisation dates back 50 years, I integrate the events of the past in a new context of the contemporary Congolese society. The aim is to create a clash between two periods of the same space.
For example: I took photographs of the skull of King Lusinga (the Tabwa chief who was beheaded by Captain Storms during a mission of territorial conquest on behalf of King Leopold II). In this project I re-appropriated the scientific method used in photography in the end…
Tabu Ley Rochereau, a legend of Congolese music, passed away on Saturday 30/11/2013. These are 10 of my favourite Tabu Ley’s songs. May he rest in peace…
Femme d’autrui: I only discovered it one Summer in 2003 in Brussels while in a friend’s car and the words spoke to me at a time when other guys were trying to snatch my then girlfriend (now wife). The rhythm section is so funky, the guitar simply hypnotic and Tabu Ley’s vocals from tenor to baritone simply owns the song and takes you to heaven.
C’est comme ca la vie: Arguably, this is his best song lyrically and melodically, but my favourite edges it for personal reasons.
Sarah:Omona wapi divorce basala feti, ba imprimer ba cartes ya invitations batinda na batu, basepela ba langwa, ba bina po batu mibale ba kabwani. A 11 minutes tirade about the joyless proceedings of…
Tabu Ley Rochereau performing at a 2003 festival in Hertme, Netherlands.
By Anastasia Tsioulcas – NPR
One of Africa’s biggest hitmakers, Tabu Ley Rochereau, a star with a honeyed voice who went on to become one of the continent’s most successful music impresarios, died Saturday. He never truly recovered from cardiovascular problems two years ago, and died at a hospital in Brussels after being admitted with an infection.
He was born Pascal-Emmanuel Sinamoyi Tabu in either 1937 or 1940 (sources differ) in a small village in Bandudu province in what was then still the Belgian Congo and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. He became one of Africa’s most prominent musicians — dubbed “the voice of lightness” for his effortlessly sweet tone — and along the way was one of the pioneers of Congolese rumba, the dance music that managed to meld the sounds of a Cuban bandstand with…
Tabu Ley Rochereau, a legend of Congolese music, passed away on Saturday 30/11/2013. These are 10 of my favourite Tabu Ley’s songs. May he rest in peace…
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