NEO•GRIOT

"Kinshasa One Two"

and a brief history

of DR Congo's shafting

It's easy to get cynical about "charity albums" for Africa by celebrities from the West, but Damon Albarn - who gathered together the collective of producers involved in this DR Congo project - has earned his cred several times over, demonstrating time and time again his cultural sensitivity, professionalism and seriousness about engaging with African musicians as contemporaries with whom to exchange ideas, rather than as people on whom to thrust his.

So our brows did not furrow for a second when we heard about Kinshasa One Two.  The Democratic Republic of Congo is almost unparalleled in terms of musical richness; it's only in the last decade or so that it's been somewhat overshadowed by Nigeria.

We talked about the current music scene in our recent two-part survey (Part 1; Part 2), and highlighted some of the Coupé Décalé modernisers we thought you ought to check out, but while an outpouring of music is a good sign for any country, in the case of DR Congo it doesn't entirely obscure the terrible history its citizens have had to live through.

As you know, DR Congo was wracked by conflict that earned the dubious distinction of being the deadliest since World War II; over five million lives were lost.  The country, about the size of the entire Western Europe, is rich in diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, zinc and coltan (used in mobile phones, laptops and other electronic gadgets), but all these riches have done is attract unscrupulous corporations, warlords and corrupt governments, cause and prolong the conflict and divide and impoverish the civilian population.

But DR Congo's tragedy didn't begin with this most recent conflict. Here's an excerpt from an article by Johann Hari for The Independent summarising the background to the country's fall (and this is kinda important, 'cos the majority of newspaper reports about DR Congo, but omitting a couple of details, seem to imply that the country simply descended into chaos once the colonial powers left the Congolese to their own devices):

The Belgians unified Congo in the first great holocaust of the 20th century, a programme of slavery and tyranny that killed 13 million people. King Leopold II - bragging about his humanitarian goals, of course - seized Congo and turned it into a slave colony geared to extracting rubber, the coltan and cassiterite of its day. The "natives" who failed to gather enough rubber would have their hands chopped off, with the Belgian administrators receiving and carefully counting hundreds of baskets of hands a day.

This system of forced cultivation continued until the Belgians withdrew in 1960, when Patrice Lumumba became the first and only elected leader of Congo. On the first day of independence, he said white people had beaten and humiliated the Congolese. In saying that he effectively signed his own death warrant.

Lumumba was a democratic socialist who wanted to overcome Congo's ethnic divisions, but no one knows if he would have fulfilled this dream because the CIA decided he was a "mad dog" who had to be put down [with Belgian complicity. What was the CIA doing in DR Congo? The country may have gained its independence in 1960, but that didn't stop it from becoming a pawn the Cold War struggle between superpowers.] Before long, one of its [CIA's] agents was driving around Kinshasa with the elected leader's tortured corpse in the boot, and the CIA's man - Mobutu Sese Seko - was in power and in the money [from 1965 - 1997 when he was forced into exile]. Everything began to fall apart after he came into power. (The BBC has a basic chronology of events, here.)

Anyway, the country is getting back to its feet, and now "mostly" at peace, with elections coming up in November (first free general elections in four decades were held in 2006), but after years of conflict a great many people need a lot more support than the government can give right now (it's a bit like Germany after WW II), and Oxfam is one of the non-profit organisations on the ground providing some of this support. Kinshasa One Two is a fund-raising initiative to boost the support they can give.

 
Oxfam invited Damon Albarn to get involved, and he put together an eclectic production team - which they called DRC Music - to collaborate with some of DR Congo's best contemporary musicians and performers (they worked with over 50). They recorded Kinshasa One Two in just 5 days, and it's gonna be released digitally by Warp Records on 3rd October 2011 with a CD/vinyl release to follow on 7th November. You can, however, pre-order your copy right now in whatever format you choose. All proceeds going to Oxfam.

This isn't just a feel-good purchase 'cos if these three embedded tracks are representative of the album as a whole then it's gonna be a goodie.

 
DRC Music - Kinshasa One Two (see http://drcmusic.org ) by DRC Music

Listen to Damon Albarn talk about Kinshasa One Two on BBC Radio

  

TRACKLIST
1. Hallo featuring Tout Puissant Mukalo and Nelly Liyemge
2. K-Town featuring N'Gotshima and Bebson
3. African Space Anthem (A.S.A) featuring Ewing Sima of Tout Puissant Mukalo
4. Love featuring Love
5. Lingala featuring Bokatola System and Evala Litongo
6. Lourds featuring Yende Bongongo of Okwess International
7. Respect Of The Rules featuring Loi X Liberal
8. We Come From The Forest featuring Bokatola System
9. Customs featuring Bokatola System
10. Virginia featuring Magakala Virginia Yollande and Yowa Hollande
11. Ah Congo featuring Jupiter Bokondji and Bokatola System
12. Three Piece Sweet part 1 & 2 featuring Bebson
13. If You Wish to Stay Awake featuring Washiba
14. Departure featuring Bokatola System