Latin music has been circling the globe for more than a century, creating dance crazes and inspiring local forms of music. From tango to reggaeton, with stops for mambo, rumba, son and salsa, bolero, Latin jazz and more, the Latin music juggernaut just keeps rolling on.
You can hear the Latin music influence on different popular music genres around the planet -- it's in music as diverse as some of Professor Longhair's New Orleans R&B tunes, and the bolero and cha cha cha style luk thung songs of Thailand (think of luk thung legend Surapon Sombatchareon's many boleros). It's in Japanese popular songs like enka, and Korean ones like trot; Japan even created an original Japanese Latin rhythm, the dodompa. A track I like to spin at my DJ sessions, Mambo El Soudani, comes from Sudan. And the list goes on.
But perhaps the place where Latin music had its most significant impact was in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in West Africa and Central Africa. In her book on Latin popular music, Musica (Chronicle, USA, 1999), Sue Steward notes that: "The genetic connections between salsa and African music are revealed in markets all over West Africa… Cuban music and salsa have had an enduring impact on the region -- spread from Cameroon to Congo by local radio stations, in particular the powerful Radio Brazzaville, founded in the Congo in 1949." And the countries in which Latin music had its greatest impact were French speaking, such as Mali, Senegal and the two Congos.
Records made by Cuban son bands in the 1920s and 1930s made their way to Senegal and its capital, Dakar, so by the time the Star Band de Dakar began singing local versions of Cuban songs in 1960, Latin music was already popular. It's a similar story in Bamako, Mali -- bands started playing Cuban covers singing in Spanish lyrics they didn't understand. Eventually musicians in these countries began to rewrite the songs in their own languages, such as Wolof in Senegal.
The UK label Honest Jon's released a compilation in 2009 called The World Is Shaking -- Cubanismo From The Congo, 1954-55, as part of a series on music recorded before many countries gained independence from European colonial powers; the series had so far covered Middle Eastern music and West African music in anglophone countries like Ghana that was influenced by calypso.
The tracks on The World Is Shaking were discovered in the vast vaults at EMI, which has recordings made by the companies' agents in different regions. In the Congo region, recordings were made in the capital of the Republic of the Congo (a French colony), Brazzaville, and in Kinshasa, the capital of the much larger Belgian colony, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The two capitals sit opposite each other on the banks of the Congo River.
I've written about the early Cuban-inspired songs of Franco in previous columns, and how he and his contemporaries created the most potent and popular African music genre, Congolese Rumba, or rumba Congolais, from Cuban rhythms and singing styles mixed with local Congolese music, especially likembe (thumb piano) music, features in the amazing, layered guitar rhythms of Congolese popular music. But what about those who were experimenting before independence? How did they incorporate the new sounds coming from Europe and the US, as well as Latin music from Cuba?
This compilation fills some of the gaps. The famous Peanut Vendor (El Manisero) Cuban song gets a local reworking (in the lingua franca of the region, Lingala) into a sad love song Moni, Moni Non Dey about a woman called Moni. Likembe wizard Boniface Koufidilia features traditional and modern on his songs, and the likembe-influenced guitar lines mentioned above are beautifully played by Rene Mbu on Boma Limbala.
In the liner notes, written by Congo music expert Gary Stewart, "coasters" are mentioned as carriers of palm wine music from further up the coast in places like Ghana; they brought jerky guitar and bottle rhythms to the Congo music mix and can be heard on Albert Bongu's excellent song Koseke Moniga Te and Andre Denis' Cherie N'Sluli Yo. One of my favourites from the compilation, Yaka Ko Tala features the beautiful vocals and harmonies of Vincent Kuli (vocal harmonies are a standout feature of Congolese rumba).
And then here is the kazoo, which turns up on Jean Mpia's Tika Koseti. Quite how it got there I don't know but it seems reasonable to assume that musicians were listening to lots of different music at the time, and trying to master new imported instruments (brass, electric guitars, drum kits and so on) and maybe kazoos were part of that process.
This fascinating compilation isn't likely to get DJs too excited but for those music fans who want to know more about how Congolese rumba developed, it's a must-have compilation.
John Clewley can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com
