It has crossed centuries and borders, has been modernized and has been passed down from generation to generation. The Congolese rumba which has echoed across Africa and the world has a good chance of being inscribed on the list of Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage in 2021.
From Africa to the world
After Arab coffee, the Art of Uzbek jokes or even Cuban rumba, make way for the two Congos (DRC and Congo-Brazzaville) which should soon see the rumba immortalized. A multiple art comprising both music and dance and which has brought in its wake a style of clothing with the SAPE (Society of Ambianceurs and Elegant People).
The first notes of rumba resonate in Africa as early as the 16th century in the ancient Kongo kingdom, where a very sensual navel-to-navel dance was practiced called Nkumba (navel), which is now called the “glue. -greenhouse”. During the slave trade, Africans torn from their continent took with them their culture and their music. Rumba thus spread to the West Indies, Cuba and America.
“Rumba is a passion shared by all Congolese … It is sprawling, in all areas of national life.”
Prof. André Yoka Lye, director in Kinshasa of the National Institute of the Artsto AFP
Rumba at the heart of Congolese life
A forgotten time, this music was reborn in Congo in the twentieth century. His return to the country in the 1940s and 1950s coincided with the birth of jazz in the southern United States. The Congolese rumba takes, over the years, a more modern form and is enriched with new instruments such as the electric guitar or the trumpet.
Rumba is now at the heart of Congolese life. Weddings, parties, religious songs, national holiday… It resonates on all occasions in Kinshasa as in Brazzaville. We sing in Lingala, the main language, but also in Swahili, French and other languages on the continent. Rumba is more than an art, it is a national identity and a pride on both banks of the Congo River.
A cultural heritage
The rumba, music of the cities and the party, was also a symbol of African independence in the 1960s, especially with the famous title Cha-cha independence by Joseph Kabasele “Grand Kallé” and his group African Jazz (video above).
The Congolese rumba, which does not stop evolving, is celebrated by many artists, dhe pioneers Wendo Kolosoy, Franco Luambo, Papa Wemba to Koffi Olomidé or Werrason… Modern rumba has transcended generations for nearly a hundred years and has established itself as a precious cultural heritage.
(Maria valencia, the title that propelled Papa Wemba’s international career in the early 1990s.)