 |
  |
Kinshasa's Staff Benda Bilili
Rumba forged on the streets
14/04/2009 -
It's hard to miss Staff Benda Bilili, a group largely comprised of polio victims. The nattily-dressed crew are usually to be found arm-pedalling their customized tricycles somewhere between the MONUC HQ and the old hospital. Ricky, Coco, Théo and co. spend their days scooting around, peddling everything from sweets, cigarettes and matches to mini-packs of gin, whisky and vodka.
However, despite their physical handicaps, Ricky, Coco and Théo are also talented musicians who assure daily rehearsals in the grounds of Kinshasa Zoo. By night, they improvise as buskers, playing the city's strips of ex-pat bars and discotheques, passing the hat round for revellers' spare change. The group's hybrid mix of classic African dance rhythms coupled with bursts of funk and reggae reflects the spirit of the Congolese diaspora who have spread to the four corners of the world.
Import-export
Staff Benda Bilili were discovered by Vincent Kenis, a Belgian musician, musicologist and talent-spotter who has made Kinshasa his second home. Kenis met the group through French film-makers Florent de la Tullaye and Renaud Barret who were in town shooting the documentary Jupiter’s Dance. Paulin, Staff Benda Bilili's bass-player, happened to be working as an assistant on the film and he introduced Kenis to the rest of the band. The Belgian fell under the spell of the group's driving rumba rhythms jammed with elements of Afro-beat, reggae and a faint memory of James Brown's fleeting trip to Kinshasa back in 1974.
Ricky and Coco, Staff Benda Bilili's senior members, could well have been at the Godfather of Soul's legendary concert. The pair met twenty-five years ago now on the boat which ferries back and forth between the banks of the river Congo. A new law was introduced in the Congo in the 1970s, making handicapped people exempt from paying taxes and many have since become involved in the 'import-export' business, plying the trade route between Brazzaville and Kinshasa. After a long, hard day's trading, Ricky and Coco got into the habit of teaming up for a jam session on the boat trip home.
Rumba-rooted groove
The boat trip jam sessions eventually evolved into a proper group (albeit one that has never played in a club), Ricky and Coco recruiting other musicians from the streets. Roger, one of the group's junior members, is a shegé, one of a group of abandoned street children who used to hang around Staff Benda Bilili without daring to approach them. The young prodigy, who met the group when he was twelve, built his own weird and wonderful instrument, the satongé (or "Cyclops"), out of an old milk can, a recycled wooden bow and a single electric guitar string. Ricky was so impressed by the hypnotic satongé solos Roger improvised in the zoo gardens, that he took the youngster under his wing and taught him some basic chords.
The high, piercing twang and modulating pitch of Roger's satongé add a unique undercarriage to Staff Benda Bilili's sound, diving and swooping throughout most of the tracks on the group's debut album. The satongé particularly comes into its own on Moziki, a song about a man losing his savings in a pyramid scam, which reflects the gritty reality of Kinshasa's mean streets - but Staff Benda Bilili continue to serve up their life-affirming rhythms no matter what life throws at them!
Eglantine Chabasseur
Translation : Julie Street
23/02/2011 -
