33 f Samba’s Back
Orchestra Virunga’s famed sweet-voiced frontman Samba Mapangala is back with a new album and still trying out fresh ideas. Jamie Renton hears about his latest projects.
S
amba Mapangala is back! Now there are words to warm the cockles of any true fan of African music. Mapangala was, after all, the man behind the
landmark album Virunga Volcano, the opening track of which, Malako Disco, is generally recognised as an ’80s world music classic (and features on the recent Nascente compilation of that name). For many of us, this was our introduction to the delights of Central and East African guitar pop. And now Samba is indeed back with the delightful Maisha Ni Mata- mu (Life Is Sweet) (Virunga Records), an album which marries his still rich molasses voice to the Congolese soukous for which he is best known, along with some reggae and Latin flavourings.
So imagine my excitement when I received a Facebook message from Samba’s manager CC Smith (erstwhile edi- tor of sadly missed US reggae and world ’zine The Beat) saying that she and Mr Mapangala were in town and would I like to meet up?
We rendezvous at the café of Foyles bookshop on a busy Sunday afternoon and Samba’s just as I imagined and hoped he would be, a friendly, modest man, with something musical about his voice even when he’s just talking. “The album is CC’s direction,” he explains. “A lot of musicians played on it, as I don’t have a group in the US. I recorded a bit in the US, a bit in Kenya and some in Paris.”
The Paris session involved some names familiar to us lovers of classic-era Parisian soukous: drummer Komba Bellow, vocalists Ballou Canta and Wuta Mayi plus the leg- endary guitarist Syran Mbenza (the latter two make up half of the very wonderful Les Quatre Etoiles, with whom Samba per- formed back in the day). Up’n’coming Kenyan singer Susanna Owiya, who recent- ly featured as part of Youssou N’dour’s New African Voices touring package, is one of those featured on the sessions recorded at Ketabul Studios, Nairobi (an old stamp- ing ground of Samba’s from his days in East Africa). Her heartfelt tones can be heard on the sweet, eco-conscious shuffle Pupande Miti (Let’s Plant Some Trees). Also from the same session Nipigie Simu (Call Me) opens with telephone sound effects and Samba stammering “Hello?...hello?” before launching into a bouncing Congo- Latin shaker, complete with swingy salsa piano from Alejandro Fuentes.
The Kenyan sessions took place in February 2009 when Samba was on his way back from headlining the Sauti Za
B
Busara Music Festival in Zanzibar. Just like pretty well everyone else who’s gone there, he fell in love with the fest, the island and its people and decided to cele- brate this in song with Zanzibar. “We just sat in the studio in Nairobi and started playing,” recalls Samba. “Komba Bellow was there, a couple of the Kenyan guys. The music came first and then we added the lyrics. But from the start we knew that the song was going to be about Zanzibar.” It’s dedicated to the Sauti Za Busara Festi- val and the legendary veteran Zanzibari taraab singer Bi Kidude (see fR150) whose performance Samba had witnessed at the festival. He has subsequently returned to Zanzibar to film a video for the song, which can be viewed on YouTube and makes for a fine cure for Seasonal Affective Disorder. As does the joyous title track. “It’s a dancing song, a party song.” Samba explains. “It says that when you have a chance you should enjoy life whenever you can, because life is short.”
orn in the seaport town of Matadi in what was then Zaire and is now DR Congo, Samba
inherited his love of music from his father (who had an ear for it, although he didn’t make any himself). In the early ’70s while a teenager, he head- ed for the capital and musical hub Kinshasa. Still a school- boy, his light but sweet singing style was soon a big hit on the local scene and in ’75 he travelled
with the other members of the band Saka Saka to East Africa, having been invited over to sing in a Ugandan nightclub. Once there, they changed their name to Les Kinois (The Youth of Kinshasa) and moved on to neighbouring Kenya.
In ’81 the band split and Samba formed Orchestra Virunga with a mix of Congolese, Ugandan, Tanzanian and Kenyan musicians. Named after a central African volcanic mountain range and fea- turing a combination of Congolese rumba and various East African styles, Virunga were a huge hit down Nairobi way and recorded the groundbreaking Virunga Vol- cano. Due to permit problems he was forced to return to Congo in ’85, two years later moving to Paris, home to a then very vibrant African (especially Congolese) music scene. He’d previ- ously encountered Paris-based Con- golese super- group Les Qua- tre Etoiles when they’d toured Kenya, and renewed the acquaintance in ’89 for a record- ing session.
Photo: C.C. Smith
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