JB Mpiana brings us the horse dance

Soyons sérieux, his new album

Paris 

23/03/2011 - 

After co-founding Wenge Musica, the flagship Congolese music group from the late eighties, singer JB Mpiana has set out to defend his star status with a double album, Soyons sérieux, which serves as a platform for launching his new horse dance.

Taken at face value, the title of JB Mpiana’s new album (“let’s be serious”) might raise a few sarcastic eyebrows given the number of hitches and delays that have peppered its production and commercialisation. Initially announced for release in late 2009 in the Congolese media, Soyons sérieux was finally scheduled to hit the record shops in… January 2011, before having its international release postponed twice, making it a couple of months later still.

The succession of developments shows how eager his fans are, but is also undoubtedly a strategic choice by the artist and his team to fill up media space, not just as a way to be seen, but to feed curiosity and ultimately create something of a happening.

The method has already proved its salt in a country where the music scene resembles a boxing ring. The forty-something singer’s musical absence wasn’t really that long, given that his previous album Quel est ton problème? dates from 2007, but it was enough to stir up concern and doubts, and for his competitors to enjoy kindling the flames: will JB Mpiana, alias Papa Chéri and Souverain 1er, manage to retain his title?

The response lasts 155 minutes, comprising 19 tracks split between the two CDs that make up Soyons sérieux, whose cover shows JB Mpiana sporting his characteristic cap, sunglasses and motorbike. For this impressive project, the man to whom we owe ndombolo, the dance that created a sensation at the end of the nineties, collaborated with the Ivorian producer David Monsoh, original promoter of coupé décalé.

Wenge Musica

Although the team accompanying him, comprising around twenty people split between singers and musicians, bears the name Wenge BCBG, the reference to the group in which the singer made his first steps to fame no longer means much. Formed in 1981 by a bunch of school friends, from 1988 Wenge Musica had the whole of the Congo dancing when they brought out their first album Bouger Bouger.

The influence of the popular King Kester Emeneya was palpable in the repertoire of these teenagers, who were proud not to be “street musicians” and to define themselves as “bon chic bon genre” (well dressed and well heeled), as they described themselves in the documentary Under African Skies shot in Kinshasa in 1989. But the first cloud was quick to appear when one of the members left the group and set up a “Parisian branch”, Wenga Musica Aile Paris.

Faced with dissidence, the main leaders stuck together. Voted best group in Zaire (former name of the DRC) in 1991 with their album Kin é bouger, Wenge Musica made a string of performances. Les feux de l’amour was a major commercial success that won a gold record and marked the ending of a beautiful story. JB Mpiana, the main craftsman of the album’s songs, had started to outshine the other star singer, Werrasson, and he took it badly. The cocktail of ego, rivalry and resentment was to prove lethal. 

The break-up was a noisy one, and each went off to pursue his own path. From then on, it was Wenge Musica BCBG against Wenge Musica Maison Mère (mother company). The attacks became more frequent, as did the demonstrations of force aimed to impress. And when it came to impressing, JB Mpiana notched up a significant score. In 2001, he performed in Bercy, the biggest Parisian venue, and filled the famous Stade des Martyrs in the Congolese capital. However, he missed the reunion last December, when, for the first time in 13 years, the founders of Wenge Musica got back together for a concert in Kinshasa. An absence he must have regretted as much as his fans.

JB Mpiana Soyons sérieux (Obouo Music/Because) 2011

Bertrand  Lavaine