The musical culture of Kinshasa, capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has deep and tangled roots. Its experimentalism has long accompanied the country’s tumultuous political history, producing shapeshifting groups from the likes of 50-strong soukous funk outfit TPOK Jazz in the 1950s to the 1970s choral rumba group Zaiko Langa Langa and at one time the world’s only all-black orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste. Consisting of their own changing collective of members, who number at least five, Kinshasa group Kokoko! continue this legacy with their debut album Fongola.
The band formed at a local block party in their Ngwaka neighbourhood in 2016 and were brought into the studio by French producer Débruit, who had made his name with four experimental albums that referenced Haitian hip-hop and Turkish folk. Thankfully, the recordings preserved their sense of spontaneity: their 2017 debut single Tokoliana combines snappy electronic percussion and pulsating kick drums with amorphous synths and vocals that veer from guttural refrains to stifled screams of joy. Fongola – also produced by Débruit – keeps up the street-party energy and develops it, adding Kokoko!’s unique mix of DIY instruments such as bottle percussion and three-stringed guitars.
Opener Likolo clatters through an ensemble of incantatory guitar phrases before the distinctive baritone vocals of singer Makara Bianko cut through, its underlying drone a promise of a darker energy to come. The momentum is kicked up a gear on Azo Toke, incorporating a jumped-up soukous rhythm, while Buka Dansa is euphoric in its Hot Chip-style soaring synths and call-and-response vocals.
Kokoko! operate best at this frenetic pace, something that translates into their live shows, where the group vibrate in matching boiler suits, live-sampling their homemade instruments. It is when the energy lags, then, that Fongola stalls, as on the sparse guitar and synth ballad Singa and the clanking Love. Fortunately, these pacers are few and far between and Fongola ultimately establishes Kokoko! as a commanding new voice, a folk-synth polyglot advancing the multi-faceted sound of Kinshasa.
Also out this month
Turkish producer Grup Ses collaborates with electric saz player Elektro Hafiz to create Varyete, a record that sounds like Turkish folk passed through Jimi Hendrix’s distorted aura and backed by a rattling J Dilla-style low end: an unlikely but deeply engrossing mix. From Morocco, reissue label Habibi Funk releases 1973 Gnawa-funk record Al Hadaoui by the 14-strong family band Attarazat Addahabia and singer Faradjallah. There are polyrhythms aplenty and Faradjallah’s vocals soar over guitar runs that wouldn’t go amiss in a Nile Rodgers session. Beginning to release music professionally only in her 70s, carimbo singer Dona Onete also produces a truly joyous collection of Brazilian dance music on Rebujo, her husky tenor grounding the effusive and percussion-heavy instrumentation.
