Extra Extra

PREPARE A POSE FOR THE LONDON FREEZE
30 APRIL 2008
LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
18.24-18.28
SPREAD THE WORD

Here’s what happened in New York:

Brought to you by Improv Everywhere

Update: It was strangely exhilarating to take part in the Liverpool Street Freeze. It was hard to tell how many of us were there until the station clock read 18.24:00, when more than a third of the people in the station stopped moving. I was on one leg at the time, and halfway down a staircase, so my balance was tested and I got the shakes after three minutes. The effect was slightly spoiled by the huge number of photographers (though I could find only one on Flickr). If you pause to think about it, there’s not a great deal of point in photographing this sort of thing. Videos of this sort of thing, on the other hand, are fun:

ABC News report

A video to promote a series of events at London’s Frontline Club.

Boy with serious expression, Fataki, Ituri, northeastern Congo

On BBC Radio 5 Live’s coveted Monday night/Tuesday morning 2am slot is a show called Pods & Blogs (also available as a podcast), ‘dedicated to covering the news as seen by bloggers, podcasters and the citizen media’. Like Radio Open Source, they like to involve listeners in shaping the show’s content.

Why am I mentioning this? Because a) it’s a fine show, and b) Extra Extra may get a mention tonight. (Thank you, Jamillah and Chris!)

So, a special welcome to any new visitors. Extra Extra is back in London now, so I foresee fewer close encounters, but strange things happen here too, and the neighbours are anything but dull, so you never know.

Update: I chose today to break my blog (fixed now). Here’s a link to the show summary. The podcast will be available until Monday 5 May, or you can listen to it here:

I pop up at 14m16s

To celebrate a couple of years in the Congo, here’s a mixtape just for Extra Extra readers. (Songs should stream when clicked. If they don’t, please let me know and I’ll scratch my head and bleat a bit.)

Some notes:

All of these tunes are from the Congo, except Congo War, which is a ska tune, and Kibe Cru, which is Brazilian (more on these anomalies below). Most of them reflect a mundele’s retro tastes, generally shared by the older Kinois only. Thanks to Barney for pointing me to Muxtape.

1. Lord Brynner & The Sheikhs - Congo War
A 60’s ska tune featuring a namecheck for current Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga. The singer explains that he may have roots in Katanga.

2. Wendo Kolosoy & Victoria Bakolo Miziki Orchestra - Cherie Kabisa (It is true that I love you)
Papa Wendo is one of the vieux papas of the Congolese music scene, making his debut in 1936, when Kinshasa was called Leopolville. In 1948 he had a big hit with “Marie-Louise”, and was even arrested because the lyrics were deemed offensive and the local priests thought it might wake the dead. (He rerecorded it recently, but if anyone has an mp3 of that early version, I’d love to hear it). He has also worked the riverboats and fought as a middleweight boxer. You wouldn’t know it from his dulcet tones.

3. Kékélé - Oyebi Bien
Former Quatres Etoiles and TPOK musicians reunited to form Kékélé and give acoustic rhumba sound a new lease of life. This beautiful song was composed by Rigobert Bamundele aka ‘Rigo Star’, a fine guitarist who has collaborated with Tabu Ley Rochereau, Papa Wemba and Koffi Olomide.

4. Docteur Nico & Orchestre African Fiesta - Pauline

This maestro cut his teeth with African Jazz, but the Docteur earned his nickname as a skilled auto-mechanic. Here he treats us to a surprising dose of Hawaiian slide guitar.

5. Mose FanFan - Bana Ba Congo
Another OK Jazz veteran who hit the road to help bring soukous to Tanzania and Kenya, then Britain. I once found a Mose FanFan CD in a shop in South Devon called Pig Finca. The owner had stuck a label to it saying “if this doesn’t move you, check your pulse: you may be dead”.

6. Luciana Demingongo - Kulo Kolu
Singing star of a later generation, Luciana got his break when Papa Wemba needed some new recruits for his band, Viva La Musica in the 80s. I have no idea what this song is about but I like it.

7. Dackin Dackino - Yuda
A friend at the International Red Cross who is married to a Congolese woman stuck this beguiling Zairean Afrobeat number on a compilation for me a few years ago. It was recorded in Kenya but unreleased, languishing in unjust obscurity for nearly 30 years before being dusted down and sprung upon an unsuspecting public as part of Duncan Brooker’s phenomenal Afro Rock compilation.

8. Trio Mocotó - Kibe Cru
This lot are from Brazil (they once backed Jorge Ben), but turn this one up loud when driving through Kinshasa’s busy backstreets and you’ll find it’s a perfect fit. I tend to mishear the chorus as a celebration of Kirikou, but that’s another story entirely.

9. J.B. Mpiana - Quel est ton problème?

Rivalries in Kinshasa’s music scene verge on the unhealthy. It’s hard to remain neutral among fans of of the more shouty pop stars, especially Werrason’s Wenge Maison Mère and JB Mpiana’s Wenge BCBG.

10. Bolia We Ndenge - Bosamba Ndeke
By a long way one of the more esoteric releases of the last few years, the two Congotronics albums (Konono No 1 and the follow-up compilation) feature electric likembe thumb pianos and traditional trance rhythms beaten out on heavily distorted ‘found’ percussion. And what about that accordion? Strange history from the liner notes: ‘Bolia We Ndenge come from the Lake Mai Ndombe. Only a century ago, the whole region was still Domaine de la Couronne, i.e a giant labor camp for the personal benefit of King Leopold II. At one point, to calm discontent, the Force Publique gave accordions to local chiefs; the idea might have been suggested by Stanley, an accordion aficionado himself.’

11. Franco & TPOK Jazz - Mario
This captivating song has a special memory for me, as I heard a rendition by the late, great Madilu System himself in a Kinshasa restaurant called La Dolce Vita.

12. Lokua Kanza - Ndagukunda Tshane
This fellow was born in Bukavu, way out east, but his family moved to Kinshasa. He spent some time in Abidjan and had a spell in Manu Dibango’s band (who visited London last week), also playing with Youssou N’Dour. I heard Lokua Kanza play in Kinshasa about a month ago. Not one of the shouty ones.

Tonight at The Jazz Café, followed by a set from, of all people, Jazzanova.

It’s good to be back in London.

A war-damaged classroom in Djugu, Ituri

The other day I visited a school with no roof. When it rains, classes stop.

I was told that there had been a battle in town, but much of the damage looked too systematic, and it seems militia groups deliberately destroyed administrative buildings and symbols of learning. That’s certainly what happened to a seminary library in Fataki, not far to the northeast, as the caretaker explains here:

The local militia groups have mostly disbanded, so people are moving back to Djugu (ahead of the UN, whose security officers are more cautious). A project is underway to build a new army camp there, bringing better water supplies and perhaps some money for a new school roof before the end of the year.

Nepali peacekeepers at the end of their tour in Fataki, Ituri, northeastern Congo

Just as I begin to feel I might be getting to know my way around this place, it’s time for me to move on.

A recurrent theme of recent conversations has been the extent to which acceptance and accommodation of the peculiarities of life in Congo involves a certain surrender and shift of values. I suppose this is true of all travel, but lots of people find the process takes longer than usual here. But then the Congo is unusually big, complicated, historically melodramatic and highly unpredictable. And let’s face it, Kinshasa is a particularly strange world within a world.

The question remains, how do you reverse the process?

Stay tuned for more pics from my most recent travels, though: something tells me they’ll be more interesting than the scenes that await me in Europe. I’ll still be in Congo in spirit, in any case, not least because I’ll have a report to distill from the notebooks I have filled.