> Description
> 28 tracks that tell the first part of the story, from 1953 - 1980, of one
> of Africa's greatest musicians. Before Youssou N'Dour, beyond Fela Kuti,
> and up there with Miriam Makeba; for Africa and Africans, only Franco can
> truly be called "the greatest".
> Album Notes
> Franco
>
> He came from a part of Africa where people attribute a great deal of
> significance to names. At his birth he was given his paternal
> grandfather's name, Luambo. To that his mother appended Makiadi, a Kikongo
> word that means "bound for misfortune." He was christened François.
> Briefly converted to Islam, he renamed himself Aboubakar Sidiki, and then,
> to comply with Zairean "authenticity" laws, he became L'Okanga La Ndju
> Pene Luambo Makiadi. The many men, women and children who depended on his
> largesse called him Yorgho (Godfather). Colleagues and rivals alike
> addressed him as Grand Maître. There were those who referred to him as
> "the Sorcerer" (some with admiration for his skill, others with suspicions
> about his success). When he died in 1989, the President of Zaire
> posthumously dubbed him Commander of the Order of the Leopard. His
> biographer bestowed on him the epithet "Congo Colossus." But to everyone
> he was best known by a short, simple name: Franco.
>
> Franco was born on July 6th, 1938, in Sona Bata, a small village in the
> westernmost region of what was then called the Belgian Congo. While he was
> an infant his family moved to the colonial capital, Léopoldville. A street
> urchin who spent more time at the docks and market squares than at school,
> he grew up hearing the music of the cités indigènes (native quarters).
> There were songs and dances of diverse traditions brought by migrants from
> the coast and up the Congo River, records imported from Europe and the
> Americas, and new sounds invented right there in Léopoldville. Franco
> heard Antoine "Wendo" Kolosoy, Henri Bowane and other troubadours and
> showmen. Their music was like their speech, Lingala, the trade language of
> the river and the vernacular of the city: derived from ethnic origins but
> constantly expanding, incorporating foreign idioms, popping with
> neologisms and slang.
>
> When he was seven years old Franco made his own guitar. He was 11 when the
> misfortune his mother had predicted struck with his father's sudden death.
> To help support his family he began busking in the neighbourhood. An older
> gadabout who called himself Dewayon noticed the scrappy guitarist and
> invited him to join his group, aptly named Watam ...mdash; the
> Delinquents. Though just a kebo band ...mdash; a bunch of self-taught
> singers, percussionists and guitarists with little of the finesse of the
> local orchestres jazz ...mdash; Watam performed at parties and in bars in
> the cités indigènes and attracted a following. Eventually the group came
> to the attention of a record company catering to the burgeoning Congolese
> phonograph market from a rudimentary studio in Léopoldville. Loningisa
> (Shake It) signed the fifteen-year-old François Luambo to a ten-year
> recording contract.
>
> Esengo ya mokili (Pleasure in this world) was one of the half-dozen tracks
> Franco cut on his first day on the job, August 3, 1953. Playing an
> imported guitar provided by Loningisa, Franco accompanied his pal Dewayon,
> who sang:
>
> You're dressed up, I'm dressed up.
> Let's go to the Kanza Bar.
> We'll dance close...
> Let the young musicians sing of our love.
> Let the priests Dewayon and Franco and the others sing a rumba.
>
> In a trumpeting vocals that belied his tender age, Franco joined the
> chorus: "What a pleasure in this world to be famous!"
>
> Young Franco had the pleasure of being, if not really famous yet, at least
> a popular musician in Léopoldville. His guitar backed Loningisa's biggest
> stars both in the studio and in the beer-gardens and night-clubs where
> bands played for dancers. His most important mentor was Henri Bowane, the
> guitarist often credited with introducing the sebene into modern Congolese
> music. The sebene was the section of a song in which one or two guitarists
> would unfold a chordal pattern while a soloist improvised over it. Under
> Bowane's influence Franco soon advanced from second to first guitar. With
> his left hand fretting parallel stops, his right thumb and forefinger
> typically plucked two strings simultaneously, in the manner of players of
> indigenous lutes. He never used a plectrum, yet his notes were strongly
> articulated whether he was playing a conventional guitar or a new electric
> model.
>
> Beyond accompanying Loningisa's top singers, Franco wrote songs for them,
> and sometimes he sang the lead. Tika kondima na zolo (Stop answering
> through your nose) was one of many 78-rpm shellac discs that bore Franco's
> name and picture.
>
> I give you my greetings and you answer through your nose.
> You look this way and that way, as though you don't know me.
>
> Congolese called this song, like many others of that era, a rumba. It
> wasn't exactly what Cubans meant by that term (though the word may have
> been derived from Kikongo), but it followed the syncopated clavé (three
> long beats, two short beats) characteristic of so much Cuban music, and
> Jean-Serge Essous, on clarinet, quoted the Cuban standard El Manicero.
> Urban Africans of Franco's generation were fascinated by Latin music, for
> here was something modern, sophisticated, popular around the world and, as
> they recognised, profoundly African. Franco and his colleagues covered
> Cuban songs and composed imitations, but they also invented new styles
> inspired equally by Latin music and by their local traditions. The rhythm
> and riffs of Tika kondima na zolo were as much Congolese as Cuban,
> particularly the bridge, which echoed the odemba ritual dance of Franco's
> mother's people.
>
> Anduku lutshuma was a fast rumba based on the chants and hand-clapped
> rhythms of a jumping game that generations of Congolese girls had played
> before Cuban records arrived in Africa. Written and arranged by Roitelet
> Moniania, the song was recorded in 1956 by singers Rossingnol Lando and
> Victor Longomba (known as Vicky) with the studio band commonly called Bana
> Loningisa. In addition to Roitelet on contrabass, Bana Loningisa at that
> time usually comprised Franco Luambo on lead guitar, De La Lune Lubelo on
> rhythm guitar or bass, Jean-Serge Essous and Nino Malapet playing reeds,
> trumpeter Jeef Mingiedi, and drummer Saturnin Pandi along with a couple of
> other percussionists. Give or take one or two, these were the same men
> who, a few months later, started calling themselves OK Jazz.
>
> The word jazz in the name suggested that this was neither a kebo band nor
> a backing band but a smart performance ensemble like the top draw in town,
> Orchestre African Jazz. OK were the initials of Oscar Kashama, who engaged
> the group to play in his OK Bar, but they also stood for Orchestre Kinois
> ...mdash; Kinois meaning "of Kinshasa," the pre-colonial neighbourhood of
> Léopoldville where the bar was located. Given the familiar English
> pronunciation, OK of course also meant "Yeah! Everything's cool."
>
> Starting in June 1956, OK Jazz played at the OK Bar every Saturday night
> and Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile the musicians kept their weekday jobs at
> the studio. Loningisa started recording them under the OK Jazz
> appellation, and by the end of the year they were putting out one or two
> 78s a month. From the beginning the line-up rarely remained fixed for
> long, but by early 1957 Franco was sufficiently committed to the band to
> write a musical playbill presenting the current members by name. He had
> Rossignol and Vicky sing it.
>
> Essous and Franco, yes, mama, yes.
> Vicky and Rossignol, yes, mama, yes.
> De La Lune and Dessoin, yes, mama, yes.
> They're playing for the OK kids.
> They're singing for the OK kids.
> They're digging each other.
>
> The song was entitled On entre OK, on sort KO (You enter OK, you leave
> knocked out), and indeed it was a hit. But while the phrase endured as a
> slogan, the sextet it touted did not. Only a few weeks after recording the
> song, Rossignol and Essous followed Malapet and Pandi out of OK Jazz into
> a new band called Rock-a-Mambo ...mdash; the first of many hatched by a
> body that was itself still fledgling. The remaining stalwarts ...mdash;
> Franco Luambo, guitarist and occasional singer; Vicky Longomba, singer; De
> La Lune Lubelo, bass-player; and Dessoin Bosuma, drummer ...mdash;
> regrouped and hired singers Edo Nganga and Célestin Kouka, saxophonist
> Isaac Musekiwa, clarinetist Edouard Lutula, trumpeter Willy Mbembe,
> guitarist Brazzos Armando and several new percussionists. OK Jazz was now
> as big in number as Orchestre African Jazz, and nearly as popular.
>
> Vicky was the front man and often got star billing, but Franco drew as
> many fans. Franco was the most prolific of the band's several songwriters
> and most often the music director, playing his guitar just like ringing a
> bell or wielding it like a conductor's baton. Tall, sharply dressed and
> quick with a grin, he stood out whether he was on stage or on the town.
> Although he was only 19 and neither well born nor well schooled, he exuded
> self-confidence and impressed everyone who encountered him.
>
> Franco and his associates represented a new kind of Congolese: urbanites.
> They were professional entertainers, self-promoters and trend-setters. The
> people who went out to see them at places like the OK Bar included
> entrepreneurs, artists, intellectuals and political activists as well as
> shop clerks, market women, dock workers, hustlers and prostitutes. They
> were among the first Congolese to come of age in the city instead of small
> towns and villages in tribal regions. They thought of themselves as
> Balipopo ...mdash; people of Lipopo (slang for Léopoldville) ...mdash; as
> much as and maybe more than Bakongo, Bamongo, Baluba or any other
> traditional tribe.
>
> Tcha tcha tcha de mi amor (composed by Brazzos) couldn't have come from
> anywhere but Lipopo in the late 1950s. The lyrics were a mash of Spanish,
> French, Lingala and gibberish that meant only one thing: "Dance!". But
> rather than the elegant rhythm of cha-cha-chá from Havana, this tcha tcha
> tcha rocked hard. Instead of the piano, flute and violins of a charanga
> like Orquesta Aragón, here were electric guitars, loud and reverberant.
> This was Latin music á la Bo Diddley.
>
> Mosala ekomi mpasi embonga was something else. Its beat was older than
> rock 'n' roll and rumba, but its complaint was modern.
>
> Steady work is becoming hard to secure.
> Unemployment hurts.
>
> However ostentatious Franco was with his nouveaux riches, he understood
> that he owed his success as much to the common people of Lipopo as to the
> businesses that gave him gifts such as his Vespa motorscooter and paid him
> to zip around town wearing the latest fashions for sale at their stores.
> When he was jailed for persistent speeding and reckless driving on his
> tukutuku he was celebrated as some kind of rebel without a cause (though
> more Brando than Dean). He swaggered wherever he went, and yet in his
> songs he cast himself as Everyman, commiserating as often as he boasted.
> It was a role that Congolese masses applauded, not only in Léopoldville
> but also across the Congo River in Brazzaville and in smaller provincial
> cities. By the end of the decade, as both the Belgian Congo and the French
> Congo were tumbling toward independence, Franco was becoming widely
> recognised as a Congolese hero, not for any military or political victory
> but for the cultural archetype he embodied. He was urbane but never one to
> hide his wild streak; he laughed at authority; he faced adversity unbowed
> and cool; and he represented millions who felt sure they were the
> generation that would rule themselves.
>
> They were nearly right. With very little preparation, the Belgian
> parliament and king declared their colony independent in 1960, and almost
> immediately the new Republic of Congo, with a covert push from Belgium and
> the United States, collapsed into civil war. However, once the first prime
> minister fled Léopoldville (later to be captured and executed on the far
> side of the country), most of the violence was kept well away from the
> capital. In fact the city flourished as residence restrictions were lifted
> and people from the provinces thronged to the cités and Congolese took
> over former European sectors. With curfews dropped Lipopo nightlife
> thrived ...mdash; a boon to musicians but also a stimulant to society,
> particularly a society trying to determine what it would be. Like every
> band in town, OK Jazz played lots of bright, upbeat dance tunes with
> romantic lyrics. But unlike most of his contemporaries, Franco wrote songs
> that expressed the disappointment and anxiety of the civil war years. In
> Bato ya mabe batondi mboka he lamented
>
> Bad people fill this country.
> Schemers fill this country.
> They lay traps for their allies.
> Only later will we ask how they succeeded.
>
> In those days Franco usually avoided politics (or tried to), but he rarely
> restrained himself from speaking his mind. He didn't always speak clearly,
> though. He was becoming a master of mbwakela, the art of surreptitious
> criticism. Using allegory, satire, metaphor or idiomatic phrases that had
> hidden meanings, with mbwakela one could say something plainly and
> something else sub-rosa. Franco employed dialect and folklore in Sansi
> fingomangoma: the language was his mother's Kintandu and the musical style
> was particular to the Bantandu. Sansi (thumb-piano) fingomangoma
> (hand-held drum) was a dance to the music of those two portable
> instruments. Franco began his rendition speaking: "You ask me to play my
> sansi for you. I will another day, but now I'm on my way to play at a
> party where I'm expected." Then he broke into song:
>
> Let me go, let me go.
> Young men are dancing there.
> Young women are dancing there.
>
> Innocuous words, but Franco sounded quite agitated, signalling, perhaps,
> that "Let me go, let me go" might not refer only to a party or that the
> young people might be involved in activities more serious than dancing.
> That's mbwakela ...mdash; or maybe it's just a traditional dance song.
>
> While some of Franco's songs revealed secrets to only a few listeners,
> others were widely interpreted, though not always as the writer intended.
> But it wasn't his mbwakela alone that people tuned into. Franco was never
> the best singer in the band, and he wrote many songs for his betters (who
> also wrote their own), but when he had something important to say
> ...mdash; openly or surreptitiously ...mdash; he cleared his throat. His
> vocals wasn't pretty but it caught the ear. His vocal range was limited
> but his emotional range was great. When he sang, people paid attention to
> the words, which weren't always profound but had meaning ...mdash;
> sometimes several layers ...mdash; for those who understood. A large part
> of Franco's attractiveness was the sense he gave people that he and they
> understood each other.
>
> In relation to his band as well as to his public, Franco, in those days,
> was a democrat. In the early years of OK Jazz he was one of a half-dozen
> or more peers. If the band had a leader, it was more or less de facto, and
> sometimes nominally, Vicky Longomba. But in 1960, in the upheaval of
> Congolese independence, Longomba quit OK Jazz and Franco became first
> among equals. Even then he sought the band's consensus on musical and
> business decisions. Everyone agreed on replacing Vicky with two fine
> singers and songwriters, Mujos Mulamba and Kwamy Munsi. Over the next five
> years OK Jazz expanded to a troupe of 14 instrumentalists and ...mdash;
> when Vicky returned ...mdash; six singers. Franco had to deal with a few
> egos as big as his, sometimes contentiously, but he usually encouraged
> collegiality and gave everyone a fair hearing and fair rewards. The result
> was a big band that swung and rocked with brawny ease. Edo's Bazonzele
> Mama Ana (They judge Madame Ana) and Kwamy's Bolingo ya bougie (Love by
> candlelight) exemplified the OK Jazz big-band sound of the mid-60s.
>
> In 1965 General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seized control of the government in
> Léopoldville, brought the civil war to an end and resolved to unify a
> country that had never before been united in any genuine sense. Despite
> some misgivings about Mobutu, Franco was a patriot as much as he was a
> democrat, so when peace held steady and a modicum of prosperity began to
> creep across the country, the pop star backed the new president. Yet while
> Mobutu promoted Lingala as a national language, Franco put out another
> traditional Kintandu song, Ku Kisantu kikwenda ko (I will not go to
> Kisantu). The record was a short piece of theatre: two men planning a trip
> to the town of Kisantu while Franco nonchalantly whistled an old tune
> before giving them a piece of his mind: "Strange things happen in Kisantu.
> I haven't been the same since my surgery there. I won't go back until
> those people change their ways." Franco's cryptic remarks were thought to
> allude to sorcery and witchcraft. Tolling a single offbeat chord on his
> guitar, he did sound a little like he was under some kind of spell.
>
> Franco wasn't always so enigmatic, and neither was he merely a gadfly. He
> sought broad support as much as Mobutu did. Mobutu's means was a national
> party; so was Franco's. Mobutu instituted the Popular Movement of the
> Revolution; Franco founded the independent record companies Surboum OK
> Jazz (OK Jazz Shindig), Epanza Makita (Scatter the Gathering), Boma Bango
> (Slay Them) and Éditions Populaires. With the bigger sound and longer
> playing time of 45-rpm singles, Franco and OK Jazz induced one dance craze
> after another. And with the jazzy guitars, plaintive saxophones and tipsy
> vocal harmonies of records like Tozonga na nganga wana (Let's go back to
> that bar) they perfected a sentimental Lingala bolero called a "slow." At
> the same time they kept their ears to the ground. By the late 60s new
> rhythms were shouldering aside the various Afro-Latinate beats that had
> propelled Congolese music for two decades. OK Jazz never gave up playing
> rumba, but Franco and the other composers knew a good thing when they
> heard it, and there were many good things to hear in Brazzaville and
> Kinshasa (as Mobutu had renamed Léopoldville) in those years.
>
> There were hundreds of professional and semi-professional bands in the
> twin cities. Former members of OK Jazz and the earlier Bana Loningisa led
> several of them, most notably Négro Sucèss and Les Bantous de la Capitale,
> while from the ashes of Orchestre African Jazz rose Dr. Nico's African
> Fiesta Sukisa and Rochereau's African Fiesta National. Besides these
> veterans there were countless young musicians eager to join existing bands
> or start new groups. There were plenty of places for them to play, and
> recording studios, though not up to date, were none the less up to
> capturing lightening in quite a few bottles. At least a dozen record
> companies sold singles throughout the country and exported or licensed
> them to foreign territories, where they began appearing in albums.
> Congolese music was popular and influential throughout Africa and
> beginning to interest hipsters in Europe.
>
> In the fierce competition among Congolese bands OK Jazz had an unfair
> advantage: its concentration of talent. Other bands featured appealing
> singers, hot guitarists, stylish horn players or crack rhythm sections,
> but only African Fiesta National (later called Afrisa International) had
> all the parts in place as splendidly as OK Jazz ...mdash; and Tabu Ley
> Rochereau never had as many good composers in his band's ranks. OK Jazz
> had saxophonist Verckys Kiamuangana, who wrote Annie ngai nalinga (Annie
> whom I love). A singer, Youlou Mabiala, composed Nzube oleka te (Thorns
> won't let you pass), which featured guitarist Mose 'Fan Fan' Se Sengo and
> a horn section almost doubled by the recent addition of four trumpeters.
> Celi Bitchoumanou, one of two bass guitarists, wrote the words and music
> of Infidelité Mado for Youlou and Franco to sing: "Oh, Mado, pain in my
> heart ... I'm going back to my hometown so I'll never have to see you
> again." Graced by one of the loveliest guitar sebenes from a musician
> whose sound was usually brash, that single was a hit throughout Africa in
> 1971.
>
> An essential component of each of these songs was a shift in rhythm at
> some point in its course. It could be subtle or obvious, a downshift or a
> change-up, but it always served to intensify the music both for the band
> and for dancers. Various terms were coined for this dynamic; the one that
> stuck was soukous. Franco lagged behind others in developing the style,
> but when he picked it up he scribbled his signature on it. In Marie naboyi
> (Marie, I reject you) he led OK Jazz through four movements, each with a
> different rhythm. One of his many kiss-off songs ("You bring your problems
> with you ... Gossip follows you around ... Don't come here anymore"), the
> piece began as a rumba in the contemporary Congolese style, with vestiges
> of Latin in the congas and maracas. Halfway through its seven and a half
> minutes it veered abruptly into cold-sweat funk driven by trap drums,
> riffing saxes and Franco's scatted chant. 16 bars later it reached the
> soukous bridge where the guitar sebene formed a glinting framework for the
> horns to ride. Finally it came to a coda with a 4/4 beat oddly stressed on
> the three and Franco vociferating like James Brown in a mumbo-jumbo his
> band-mates called Francophonie.
>
> Franco composed Marie naboyi after hearing a piece that his younger
> brother, Bavon Marie-Marie Siongo, wrote for Négro Sucèss, the popular
> band he had recently joined. Despite frequent quarrels between them, the
> younger brother imitated his elder's guitar style and repaid the debt by
> turning him on to James Brown. He was also the cause of Franco's deepest
> sorrow. One night in 1970 Marie-Marie angrily accused Franco of seducing
> his girlfriend, then dragged the girl into his car, sped off and slammed
> into a truck. He was killed and the young woman lost both of her legs.
> Devastated, Franco retreated into his mother's house. When he resumed
> performing and recording months later he sounded much quieter.
>
> For Boma l'heure (Pastime) he played an acoustic guitar and assembled a
> chorus of party girls and groupies ...mdash; the very women who were the
> subject of his song. Calling them by name, Franco addressed them with both
> sarcasm ("The emancipation of the Congolese woman!") and tenderness ("You
> comfort me"). He held on to the acoustic guitar and female chorus for
> Likambo ya ngana (Someone else's problem), which featured Camille Feruzi,
> an accordionist Franco and Marie-Marie had listened to when they were
> kids. While the music conveyed nostalgia for happier times, the words
> expressed dismay at the idle hearsay and malicious gossip "killing this
> community." Franco was alluding to the rumours about how his brother died.
> It took him four years to pronounce Marie-Marie's name on record. He sang
> Kinsiona in Kintandu, the language he spoke with his brother; the title,
> "Grief," summed up the anguished lyrics, and the music bared everything
> Franco had tried to keep to himself.
>
> By then Franco had come back stronger than before despite his melancholy
> and growing ill temper (to say nothing of his growing weight). Vicky and
> Kwamy had both quit OK Jazz, taking sidemen with them, this time forever,
> but Franco had easily replaced them with musicians poached from other
> bands. He had also added a few new positions to the line-up and extended
> the name; henceforth it was le tout puissant, "the almighty" OK Jazz, or
> TPOK Jazz. AZDA was one of many records of the 70s in which that name was
> shouted out. Recorded in a brief session in Kinshasa one day in 1973, it
> was released to little notice in Zaire (as Mobutu had renamed the
> ostensible republic). Over time, though, it spread across Africa like one
> of those savannah grassfires that burn for years. It jumped to Europe, and
> for a long while it was Franco's most famous song in the world beyond
> Zaire. Most listeners, apparently, thought it was a love song; actually,
> it was an advertisement. AZDA was the acronym of a Volkswagen dealership
> with outlets in half a dozen Zairean cities, and for an appropriate
> consideration (a new car for each of the 24 members of TPOK Jazz) Franco
> sang its praises. "Vay-way, vay-way, vay-way, vay-way," went the refrain,
> using the local pronunciation of VW.
>
> Franco had no qualms about selling his songs if the money was right. His
> oeuvre included endorsements of soap, cigarettes, beer, airlines,
> political patrons and ultimately President Mobutu. TPOK Jazz often
> performed at political rallies and official state functions for which
> Franco wrote songs promoting government policies and praising their
> mastermind. Franco had grown up poor and uneducated, but he was no fool.
> He understood the benefits Mobutu could bestow on him just as the dictator
> recognised the musician's stature among the people whose favour they both
> coveted. Franco profited handsomely from his support for Mobutu (the
> presidency of the national musicians' union, a sinecure with the
> nationalised record-pressing plant, a controlling hand in the official
> royalty agency) and Mobutu gained a considerable measure of legitimacy as
> a man of the people, embraced by the folk-hero Franco.
>
> Privately, Franco enjoyed amusing his closest friends and colleagues with
> his mimicry of Mobutu. There were indeed similarities between them. One,
> however, was their wariness of each other; neither could be sure of the
> other's loyalty. The public surmised that some of Franco's songs were
> tacitly critical of the government. Mobutu suspected as much, but to react
> would have removed all doubt about the innuendo of Franco's mbwakela, so
> the popular entertainer got away with whatever it was he was doing
> (subversion or shtick). But not always; he lost his privileges from time
> to time and the authorities occasionally got tough with members of TPOK
> Jazz to remind their leader not to go too far. Eventually Franco came to
> regret his support for Mobutu. His fans sympathised; they were in the same
> trap. They knew what Liberté meant. Lyrics about disaffection for a
> domineering wife and wanting a divorce were not all that subtle: "Since
> you've confiscated my passport I'm determined to regain my liberty."
>
> But with Franco it was never just politics. More often it was art, and
> sometimes it was both. In Mambu ma miondo (The problem of land), an
> uncommon song, he sang about wars being waged over territory in Africa and
> around the world, horn alarums and a ghostly chorus echoing him. Around
> that time (1973) and at the same Club Vis-à-Vis, which served as an
> open-air studio when closed to the public, TPOK Jazz recorded Minuit eleki
> Lezi (It's after midnight, Lezi), a torch song in more ways than one. "The
> hour for love has passed and you're still not home," the singers moaned.
> "Now is the hour for nightmares," they wailed. Then Franco, sparking one
> double- or triple-stop guitar phrase after another, repeating each until
> it burned, lit the hottest sebene on record. "I like that!" one of the
> singers exclaimed in English.
>
> The composer of Minuit eleki Lezi was Simaro Lutumba, who had by that time
> been Franco's rhythm guitarist for ten years and begun to demonstrate fine
> songwriting skills. His most famous song, despite its morbid musings, was
> Mabele (Soil).
>
> I am married to maggots.
> My family is the soil.
> That is my origin
> And that is what I reproduce: the soil.
>
> Sam Mangwana sang Mabele. He had made his name alongside Rochereau in
> African Fiesta National in the mid-60s, then led Festival des Maquisards
> before joining TPOK Jazz in 1972. Some of his fans were appalled that he
> would sing with Franco, who had been crude from the start and was now
> really too vulgar in their view. Mangwana knew better. During his three
> years with TPOK Jazz he sang some of the most poignant and beautiful songs
> of his long, illustrious career. One was Alimatou, a song Franco wrote
> about a married woman going to great lengths to conduct a secret affair
> ("The truth will become known ... We will see who is deceiving whom and
> who is complicit").
>
> Alimatou and most other TPOK Jazz records of the mid-70s were recorded at
> Un Deux Trois, the five-storey club-restaurant-studio-office-apartment
> complex Franco built in 1974 at an intersection in Matonge, Kinshasa's
> notorious nightlife district. The band would assemble there in the
> afternoon, collectively work out an arrangement of a new song, play it for
> the crowd that night, then record it the next day. The Un Deux Trois
> equipment was little better than basic, but it did allow the
> ever-expanding band to stretch out. A song could be take one side of a
> single, carry over to the flip side, fill an EP or appear on an LP. The
> extended version ...mdash; for instance Chérie Bondowe 2 (like Chérie
> Bondowe 1, composed by Mayaula Mayoni, a professional footballer whose
> team Franco supported) ...mdash; allowed the band to take its sweet time
> gearing up to cruising speed. The singers would come forward one by one,
> two by two or all together, in unison or in harmony, sometimes breaking
> into call and response, as the music led them. Shifting into the soukous
> section, the guitarists and horn players would do much the same thing with
> parts ...mdash; doubling, separating, entwining, massing ...mdash; with
> increasing force. On Liberté they ambled through the introduction for only
> a minute before mounting an eight-and-a-half-minute crescendo (Ravel's
> Bolero Zairean-style), gradually rallying every member of the band to
> arms, tout puissant indeed.
>
> Even longer, Lisolo ya Adamo na Nzambe (Conversation between Adam and God)
> started at a fast pace and soon turned hyper. Ntesa Dalienst, a singer
> Franco had taken from Grands Maquisards, wrote the song and sang the
> opening verse, pondering what God might have told Adam about Eve (though
> "I can't find the chapter in the Bible"), only to yield to Franco, who
> lashed out at men for their treatment of women.
>
> You see your friend's wife.
> Let her pass! Let her pass!
> You see your neighbour's daughter,
> Whose birth you witnessed,
> And now that she has breasts you desire her.
> Shame on you!
>
> Franco had several wives and innumerable mistresses, some of them quite
> young and a few stolen from friends and colleagues, so one has to wonder
> how much his vehemence was directed at himself. A few months later he
> recorded two songs, Hélène and Jacky, which were unambiguously obscene;
> they offended even the members of his band. He hadn't intended to release
> them to the public, but they got out on bootleg cassettes, and the uproar
> gave the authorities the pretext they'd been waiting for. They arrested
> most of TPOK Jazz and imprisoned Franco for 33 days.
>
> Franco did not emerge from prison in 1978 to the hero's welcome he'd
> enjoyed when he'd been jailed for reckless driving in 1959. This time he
> left town. He employed enough musicians to man two bands, one that stayed
> in Kinshasa and played nightly at Un Deux Trois, another that hit the road
> with him. Franco took his travelling TPOK Jazz throughout Zaire,
> neighbouring countries, East Africa and West Africa. Along their way they
> crossed paths with Ryko Jazz, Orchestre Vévé, Orchestre Révolution, Lovy
> de Zaire, Somo Somo, Tiers Monde Coopération, African All-Stars and
> Kamikaze Loningisa ...mdash; bands led by former colleagues. Congolese
> music was the rage wherever they went, and Franco was hailed as its Titan.
>
>
> And yet he began spending more time where he wasn't so well known. In
> Paris and Brussels he could be the man on the street again ...mdash; the
> tall, heavy-set black man on the street, the one whose French was rough
> ...mdash; but though uncomfortably conspicuous, he could be incognito.
> While living in Brussels in 1980, Franco recorded Nalingaka yo yo te (I
> don't like you). Nearly alone in the studio, he multi-tracked most of the
> instruments ...mdash; including a drum machine and a synthesiser ...mdash;
> and the vocals, singing "I've come to a place where I don't know what
> people want ... This relationship is driving me mad ... I don't like you!"
> Entrancing despite the bile, this was the strangest record Franco had ever
> made. At the end he intoned his old slogan, "On entre OK, on sort KO,"
> then laughed. Was that it? Was he no longer OK? Was he leaving KO'd?
>
> So it seemed at the time. But no, not yet. Franco made great music for the
> better part of one more historic decade ...mdash; more than enough to fill
> a second Francophonic volume.
>
> © 2008 Ken Braun / Sterns Music
> Recording Location
> Congo
>
>
> Disc 1
> 01. Esengo ya mokili 3:18
> 02. Tika kondima na zolo 2:59
> 03. Anduku lutshuma 3:01
> 04. On entre O.K., on sort K.O. 2:57
> 05. Tcha tcha tcha de mi amor 3:11
> 06. Mosala ekomi mpasi embonga 3:09
> 07. Sansi fingomangoma 2:27
> 08. Bato ya mabe batondi mboka 2:39
> 09. Bazonzele Mama Ana 2:47
> 10. Bolingo ya bougie 3:11
> 11. Ku Kisantu kikwenda ko 4:43
> 12. Tozonga na nganga wana 3:56
> 13. Annie ngai nalinga 4:06
> 14. Marie naboyi 7:37
> 15. Boma l'heure 5:06
> 16. Nzube oleka te 4:36
> 17. Likambo ya ngana 5:23
> 18. Infidelité Mado 6:42
> Disc 2
> 01. AZDA 7:34
> 02. Mambu ma miondo 4:58
> 03. Minuit eleki Lezi 7:30
> 04. Mabele 7:25
> 05. Kinsiona 4:05
> 06. Alimatou 7:22
> 07. Chérie Bondowe 2 7:31
> 08. Liberté 9:36
> 09. Lisolo ya Adamo na Nzambe 9:43
> 10. Nalingaka yo yo te 10:42
>
>
>
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