f34 B
ack in Kenya a year later, he had a popular residency at Nairobi’s Garden Square Club. Backstage one evening after a show, he encountered the English musician Charlie Hart (of Slim Chance, Juice On The Loose and People Band fame), who invited him over to the UK. With help from Charlie H and promoter David Flower, Samba moved to the UK in ’91 with his Kenyan band and record- ed the fondly-remembered album Feet On Fire for Sterns. He returned home in ’93, but soon became fed up with the piracy and increasing lack of musical opportunity on the local scene and following a North American tour, moved to New York in ’98. Lack- ing the cash to bring his band with him, he hooked up with US musicians. Enter CC Smith. “We were talking all the time on the phone,” Samba recalls. But it was only when The Beat wound down in 2009 that CC felt she could really get involved.
“I first heard Samba’s music on my first trip to London in 1984,” CC explains. On touching down the UK, she went directly to the late and much-lamented central London African record emporium Sterns, where she was handed a copy of Virunga Vol- cano by Sterns head honcho Trevor Herman “I’ve been playing it ever since. I never tire of it. Anyone who hears that introduction to Malako Disco… it’s unforgettable. Like one of these great moments of music. It still gives me shivers just to hear it. Basically his entire sound, his repertoire, his musicianship, it’s hard to equal that in pop music… and believe me I’ve seen it all!” OK, on paper, this might read like the sort of thing that a manager would say in order to hype up an artist in their charge, but in this case I’d wager that things works the other way round: that CC took on the manager’s role because this is how she feels about Mr Mapangala’s music.
She first met (and interviewed) Samba when he visited the US in ’91 and then reconnected with him a decade later. “I’m very privileged to be involved. He didn’t make good music for some long time while he was in the States, so I’m really focusing on trying to get him back on track, give him time to compose, to have his inspiration. He’s got his own style, which is rooted in Tabu Ley Rochereau.”
Along with guitarist Franco, vocalist and songwriter Tabu Ley is one of the twin giants of Congolese music (and the subject of two recent, excellent compilation albums on Sterns). “Samba grew up listening to Tabu Ley’s voice,” CC continues. “And was able to sing similarly to him and that’s a good master to have if you’re learning how to sing African music. He’s got the range that he can handle that.” Samba also cites ’70s soukous rebels Zaiko Langa Langa and their more easygoing contemporaries Orchestre Bella Bella as important early influences on his sound.
“I’m trying to direct him back into the old school stuff,” CC tells me, “because that was really where he made his mark.” It’s working too I reckon. The new album sounds closer to the essence of the man than anything of his I’ve heard in years. There’s been sniffiness in some quarters about the gentler reggae-based and acoustic tunes and odd eco-friendly English language lyric, but that all sounds pretty unforced, genuine and charming to my ears.
Samba with Orchestra Virunga at Womud 2007
Photo: Jak Kilby
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