Alan Brain
2021The Rumba Kings
Alan Brain
Manu Dibango, Papa Wemba
In the fifties, when the future Democratic Republic of Congo was still a Belgian colony, an entire generation of musicians fused traditional African tunes with Afro-Cuban music to create the electrifying Congolese rumba, a style that conquered the entire continent thanks to an infectious rhythm, captivating guitar sounds and smooth vocals.
The Rumba Kings
The Rumba Kings
Alan Brain
Papa Wemba, Manu Dibango
The Rumba Kings is a documentary that unveils the brighter and ignored side of a country that the mass media has always associated with rape, war, poverty and corruption: The Democratic Republic of Congo. The Rumba Kings shows us that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, not so long ago, there were bands and musicians as talented as The Beatles, and as famous in the African continent as The Rolling Stones are in the West. Congo’s capital Kinshasa was the musical center of Africa for more than 30 years. Furthermore, the documentary tells us that Congolese Rumba is disappearing, leaving almost no trace since there are no video archives, no master audio tapes of the best bands and musicians, and not even musical notation documents of the thousands of songs produced in that era.
The Rumba Kings