As the music fraternity commemorates the 34th anniversary of Rhumba legend Franco Luambo Luanzo Makiadi this week, the majority of fans are disturbed by the death of the 'Mighty' TP OK Jazz Band ...

Once more, millions of Rhumba fans are commemorating the death of Franco Luambo Luanzo Makiadi, one of the world’s greatest musicians of the 20th century. After his untimely demise in 1989, his legacy ...

African music traveled to the New World with slavery, only to return to Africa in the 1930’s and 40’s via 78 rpm phonograph records, broadcast by Radio Congo Belge in Léopoldville (now Kinshasha), ...

Each weekend, dancers stoked on music and alcohol sway to the old hits on the decrepit rooftop terrace of Kinshasa's venerable La Creche bar like little has changed in the Congolese capital since the ...

I’ll always have plenty of reasons to be grateful for the friendship of Jenny Graf Sheppard, a sound artist best known around these parts for her roles in Metalux and Bride of No No, but today I feel ...

Yves Emongo was very clear. No one, he told this writer, can wear the OK Jazz brand better than Franco did. The son of L’Okanga La Ndju Pene Luambo Makiadi, better known simply as Franco, was trying ...

It’s just after 8pm on a warm Saturday night and the heavy sound of guitars lightens up the atmosphere inside the serene setting of the Tamambo Restaurant in Karen. The pulsating beat of “Tres Impoli” ...

Prologue: a mighty sound: Mobutu and the musicians, 1997 -- Difficult delivery: Bowane, Leopold II, Stanley, Brazza, Kamba, Feruzi, and Wendo, 1946 and before -- Why don't you make a record? Olympia, ...