“The Kasaï Nightingale” was on stage, a flamboyantly dressed stage animal as always, when he collapsed from a sudden illness.
The drummer completed his rumba riff on the cymbal before stopping the music. The dancers rushed to the leader’s aid.
When he was asked to comment on Joseph Kabila’s will for a third presidential term despite the Congolese constitution forbidding this, Wemba declined to answer.
Politics is a matter for politicians; as a musician, his role is to give “taste for life” to the people and to sustain whomever is elected.
This view has always been very popular among Congolese musicians. Even though facing a strong and oppressive political power, many singers praise wealthy and powerful people in their songs (a practice called libanga) to make money.
Times seem to be changing
A RADICAL movement called Les Combattans, active in the last few years among diasporic communities, systematically boycotts Congolese musicians when performing abroad.
They punish them for colluding with Kabila’s regime and being indifferent to the country’s disasters and misery.
Wemba repeatedly invited Les Combattants to “smoke the peace pipe” for the sake of a united Congo.
On the contrary, the political tension in the Democratic Republic of Congo is rising, and a new generation of musicians is singing the claim for democracy and social justice, together with the activists.
Viva La Musica, anyway. — this article first appeared in The Conversation
lEugenio Giorgianni is a PHD student in Music at Royal Holloway, University of London
Tragic end to the life of Africa’s superstar
The drummer completed his rumba riff on the cymbal before stopping the music. The dancers rushed to the leader’s aid.
When he was asked to comment on Joseph Kabila’s will for a third presidential term despite the Congolese constitution forbidding this, Wemba declined to answer.
Politics is a matter for politicians; as a musician, his role is to give “taste for life” to the people and to sustain whomever is elected.
This view has always been very popular among Congolese musicians. Even though facing a strong and oppressive political power, many singers praise wealthy and powerful people in their songs (a practice called libanga) to make money.
Times seem to be changing
A RADICAL movement called Les Combattans, active in the last few years among diasporic communities, systematically boycotts Congolese musicians when performing abroad.
They punish them for colluding with Kabila’s regime and being indifferent to the country’s disasters and misery.
Wemba repeatedly invited Les Combattants to “smoke the peace pipe” for the sake of a united Congo.
On the contrary, the political tension in the Democratic Republic of Congo is rising, and a new generation of musicians is singing the claim for democracy and social justice, together with the activists.
Viva La Musica, anyway. — this article first appeared in The Conversation
lEugenio Giorgianni is a PHD student in Music at Royal Holloway, University of London
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