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tional music. But at all times their perfor- mances are amplified, less so for the pri- vate appearances, but amplified all the same. The only time they play completely acoustically is when they’re developing new material in rehearsal, otherwise the amps are an integral element of the sound. “This is because the likembe is such a diffi- cult instrument to play,” Augustin explains, ”so if you play it without amplification, you’re bleeding by the end of the set. It’s really brutal on the fingers, whereas with amplification, you barely have to touch it and this is a lot more practical.”


I wondered how their shows in Kin- shasa and those for the international cir- cuit differed. “Over here it’s a lot more business and a lot more limited. You get a show time, you get an hour or 90 minutes and that’s what you play. In Kinshasa, at weddings, you can start at 8pm and finish at 3 in the morning. At Cabaret Sauvage we can play for four hours or more.”


K


story and have that special something that allows them to cross over to the rock crowd. They don’t actually sound alike, but share a certain attitude.


onono’s founding family hail from Bas Congo, an area on the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Angola, the hot southern part of the


country with its own customs and rituals. Konono’s sound is based around that of this borderland and the Bazombo tribe who hail from there. Trying to work out when Konono first formed is a tricky business. Their debut recording appeared in the mid 1970s and they were one of four bands included on Ocora’s 1978 Musiques Urbaines A Kinshasa – sound- ing barely different to their 2005 Crammed album – but I’d read that they’d been going since the ‘60s. “That’s when everyone became aware of us,” Augustin tells me, “but it existed in dif- ferent forms long before that, with my father and grandfather. My grandfather was one of the King’s musicians, who’d play accompaniment for his speeches and at festivals and holidays.” Congolese music was, at this point, very much geared towards education, with lyrics that prepared young men and women for the future and this didactic tradition is one that Konono strive to maintain.


Augustin’s grandfather played a tradi- tional Bazombo horn (crafted from ele- phant tusks) and it was his father, Papa Mingiedi Mawangu, who first took up the likembe. Moving to the Congolese capital Kinshasa in the late 1950s, he found this delicately plucked instrument was drowned out by the sounds of the city and so, in a strong parallel with Muddy Waters going electric when he hit big city Chicago from the deep South a decade earlier, he decided the solution was to go electric. He started fixing together bits of old cars and wires salvaged from scrapyards, hooking them up to discarded speakers he found in the street, in order to create makeshift amplification for his likembe.


This was innovative stuff. “I don’t think my father really realised what a change of direction he was pushing,” explains the affable Augustin (by all accounts a more laid-back character than his single-mindedly determined dad). “For him it was a means of survival. He came from the village to the city, he was


uneducated and he needed to find a way to be heard and to put food on the table.” Pretty soon Le Groupe De Mingie- di, as they were known, were big-time local stars, in great demand at Kinshasa’s parties. Their audience was made up mainly of educated young Bazombo from the villages who had moved to Kinshasa to study and were eager for a taste of home (no matter how distorted).


In the ‘70s, whilst all around them


Zaire’s great rumba dance bands were combining African and Cuban styles, Konono stayed true to their regional roots, but nevertheless scored a big local hit with a song called Lufluala Ndonga, the chorus of which featured the word ‘Konono’. Because of this, they became known as ‘The Group That Sang Konono’, which was then shortened to plain ‘Konono’. In the wake of their success, a number of other Kinshasa street bands sprung up adopting their amped-up folk- loric style and even taking their name. In order to differentiate themselves from their imitators, Mingiedi’s group styled themselves ‘Konono No 1’.


After my experience at the Scala, I felt compelled to ask Augustin about the trance-inducing nature of their music. “If there is a trance or spiritual element, that probably comes from the ancestors, whose music we’re playing and bringing forward today. I very much feel that I’m playing my father’s songs, so I can’t really comment on whether there are these ele- ments within what we play, as we’re merely transmitting what has gone before.” When I point out that I believe I went into a trance during the previous night’s performance, he chuckles and says “You were visited by the ancestors”.


The Kononos’ current repertoire focus- es mainly on old songs from the villages of Bas Congo, although they’re starting to introduce a few newer pieces into their set, three of which feature on Assume Crash Position. The current line-up is the third generation of Konono. Augustin is part of the second generation, but his 29-year-old son also features in the group. Back home, they play weddings, christenings and funerals, but also perform every weekend at a Kinshasa club called Cabaret Sauvage. They use the latter as an opportunity to experiment and practise for their interna- tional tours, whereas with the private events they’re restricted to playing tradi-


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When Crammed Discs came a knockin’ and suggested that Konono could tour internationally, they couldn’t quite believe it was for real. It was only when a sound- man and a new PA system arrived in readi- ness for their first foray out of the local scene, to Brazil in 2003, that their move from neighbourhood perennials to world stage players really sunk in. Their caution was understandable. “We had been approached by European producers before,” Augustin notes, “but nothing ever came to fruition.”


hey were taken aback by the positive reception their debut album (and subsequent tour) received. “The recording was nothing to us. There really


wasn’t anything to it, it was just what we do. The fact that it was so well received, elevated it for us and reawoke our spir- its!” If the first album was a record of their already long established sound, then the recent release sees them devel- oping something new. “It was the first time we’d set out to ‘make an album’, we invited the ancestors’ spirits to feed the work, so that we could make ‘the album of the century’ and there was obviously a lot more production tech- niques involved.” There’s always been an educational element to Konono, who strive to pass on the traditions of the likembe to each new generation. The current crop of young students have added guitars to the mix and these fea- ture on Assume Crash Position alongside percussionists from fellow Congotronics artists Kasai Allstars and Pepe Felly, for- merly guitarist with Congolese rumba vets Zaiko Langa Langa. ZLL reworked one of Konono’s best known tunes Konono Wa Wa Wa as Zaiko Wawawa and it’s given a further reading on the new album, as an 11-minute epic that forms the centrepiece of the recording.


And that’s it, my allotted hour’s inter- view time is up and thanks to all the to-ing and fro-ing with translation, I haven’t had a chance to get all the answers I need. What’s a hack to do? John Stevens, who handles press for Crammed Discs in the UK, suggests I talk to Vincent Kenis, the Bel- gian bass player, producer and musical adventurer who first brought Konono to the attention of an international audi- ence. This turns out to be a good move, as Vincent is the kind of interviewee you always hope you get: he’s got interesting anecdotes and observations aplenty and our phone chat fills in all the gaps.


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