25 f


bands and dreaming up the whole Con- gotronics concept as a way of introducing the world to Kinshasa’s amped-up urban traditionalists. He initially encountered Congolese music aged 12, when he inter- viewed the owner of a local Congolese music bar for his school newspaper in his native Brussels. In 1979, he taped a recording of Kinshasa street musicians broadcast by a leftfield French radio sta- tion, which featured Konono, as well as members of what was to become The Kasai Allstars. “At the time I was touring with a punk band called Honeymoon Killers and for me, Konono was a kind of African counterpart, because I thought they were punks!”


V


Besotted with their raw combination of urban and traditional elements, he searched for Konono during trips to Kin- shasa in ‘89 and ‘96, but failed to track them down. “Finally in 2000, I found some- body who knew them, a kind of local one- man fan club. He told me he thought they were somewhere in Angola. So I left him my card and said that I was interested in meeting and maybe recording them.” He returned in 2002 and finally got to hook up with the band he’d been searching for for two decades. At this point Konono had been dormant for some years and only re- formed because of this outside interest.


“All of these tradi-modern groups formed partly for political reasons,” Vin- cent tells me, “because Mobutu started a campaign called Authenticité which said ‘We don’t need external cultural influ- ences, we’ve got everything we need


incent has worked on all kinds of projects, producing Zap Mama and Taraf De Haïdouks, playing bass and keyboards in punk, jazz and expe5rimental


here’.” This was in 1971 and although Konono never received any direct fund- ing from the Zairian dictator, three years later they were one of the groups invited to perform on the streets of Kinshasa as a greeting to those attending the ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ Ali versus Foreman boxing match and associated big-time live con- cert. (In 2006, Konono were presented with their BBC Award For World Music by Hugh Masekela, one of the artists who had performed at the ‘Rumble In The Jun- gle’ concert, more than 30 years earlier.) So for a brief period in the mid 1970s, Konono were big stars throughout the country. Then the money and attention dried up and they returned to where they started. “They went back to playing in the neighbourhoods and even tried their luck in Angola, as there was much more money there!”


Mobutu’s Authenticité initiative was maintained by his successor Joseph Kabila, which meant that the country was in musi- cal isolation for the best part of three decades, with foreign music banned from the airwaves. “He hated external influ- ences, just like Fidel Castro in Cuba. They happened to be the dictators of the most musical countries in the world. In Congo, when you mention James Brown, it’s his dancing which he is known for, he has no musical influence whatsoever, unlike in Nigeria or other parts of West Africa, where funk and soul have had a big influ- ence. To this day, Congolese music has been influenced the most by Cuban music.”


This means that Konono were com- pletely unaware of the blues and rock with which their music has such parallels. “What makes electric likembe different to acoustic likembe is the same as what makes an elec- tric guitar different to an acoustic guitar,”


notes Vincent. “The amplification is the same, the artefacts created by the amplifi- cation are the same. So the music is very close, yet at the same time very far from electronic and rock music. But for Konono, they have no point of comparison.”


Now, they may at last be exposed to outside influences, even collaborating with western rock artists, although up until now, they haven’t been that open. According to Vincent, Mingiedi is com- pletely closed to anything external and has blocked the group’s development. Augustin is more open to whatever comes his way, but won’t seek out new influ- ences. “This attitude is very common in Congo. They believe they are the best at what they do, so why would they change? And when they change, it’s not because of a conscious decision. But they do evolve. For example, Augustin’s playing is more inventive and varied than his father’s.”


Vincent finally tracked Konono down to a neighbourhood bar, where he tried to record them. “On the first day, there was no electricity, on the second day we had a generator but that failed to produce any electricity. So on the third day I took them to the Centre Culturel Français, where at least we were sure about electricity and it was also very good acoustically for Konono, because they played in the open air but under a corrugated iron roof, which gave an amazing reverb.”


“At last, with the latest album, Con- golese people have started to appreciate Konono’s music, because there’s a bass gui- tar influenced by soukous.” Vincent was at first cautious about bringing in other instruments. So unique is the tuning and tone of the likembe, he was worried that the group would lose what made them


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