Kokoko! and Tribute to Lokassa Ya M’bongo

The Congolese double-header including a tribute to the late Soukous Stars guitarist and bandleader Lokassa Ya M’Bongo, followed by an evening club performance by Kinshasa’s Kokoko! on Saturday, April 22nd.

Lokassa Ya Mbongo, the influential guitarist and a pioneer of the Soukous genre, originally from Congo (DRC) but living the past two decades in the US, sadly passed away in March 2023. His impact on the African music scene in the US (and in music communities across Colombia, Paris and Central Africa) was immense. In appreciation of this legend’s career, musicians and fans gathered at Silvana in Harlem to remember him at a tribute event this past Saturday April 22nd. Later that evening, music fans were treated to another Congolese performance as a stripped down version of the pioneers of the Kinshasa DIY art/music scene Kokoko! performed a scorching set to a sold-out audience at Brooklyn’s Public Records venue. Highlights of this Congolese double-header follow:

Dennis Lokassa Kasiya, known publicly and the world over as Lokassa Ya M’Bongo, was a founding member and the leader of the famous band Soukous Stars, which along with Loketo, Arlus Mabele and other acts popularized the Congolese Soukous genre. Lokassa was renowned for his personal warmth and his supreme skill on rhythm guitar (including the mi-solo playing technique) which is essential to both Soukous and Congolese rhumba. The Soukous Stars band were ambassadors of the Soukous genre world-wide, with active touring and album releases that spanned well over three decades. Lokassa and his band included such musical legends as Ngouma Lokita (bass), Balou Canta (vocals), Dally Kimono (lead guitar), Shimita El Diego (vocals), Yondo Sister (vocals and dancer) and in later years Nkumu Katalay (drums), Jirbo Ntunta (vocals) and Shiko Mawatu (lead guitar). Their local presence from the late 1990s until recent years was a mainstay of the African music scene in New York.

This special afternoon tribute was organized by three individuals, Nkumu Katalay, Grace Haukwa and Vivian Akinyi, and the event brought together former band members and many fans of Soukous music into the intimate club setting. Several sets of music were performed demonstrating the development of Congolese Rumba and Soukous over the decades, and ample time was provided for band members, local music personalities and music fans to share thoughts and testimonials of how Lokassa was impactful to them and touched their lives in a positive way. Nkumu notably recalled how he was welcomed into the band at a young age once Lokassa heard him perform the Congolese maracas (shekere) in the traditional style, a talent Nkumu picked up as a youth in Kinshasa while trying to emulate a band, Douze Balles, who were local Kinshasa hitmakers during his youth. Upon being accepted into Soukous Stars, he went on to perform for many years as the lead drummer and also providing percussion and animation for the band, both on recorded albums and on tour.

When Lokassa played Soukous guitar, his smile always radiated from the stage and he gained many lifelong music fans from his superb guitar skills and the warmth of his stage presence. He was a band leader who provided stability and consistency within an often revolving African music scene. The foundation of Soukous music was based around Lokassa’s rhythm guitar playing including his perfecting of the mi-solo technique, which would offset the delectable lead guitar notes of soukous. Another thing that made his playing unique, Katalay told us, was a unique tuning of his guitar - he replaced the third D string, changing the note to B, which emboldened his unique sound. On Saturday’s tribute night, Hussein Kalondji used the same tuning on his guitar at Silvana.

In addition to the Soukous Stars productions, over the years, Lokassa and bandmates including lead guitarist Dally Kimoko, and bassist Ngouma Lokito have performed on countless African music albums as skilled session musicians. Over the past decade, Lokassa became a fixture on the Colombia music scene where he gained significant renown and notoriety. Lokassa had many fans in Colombia where he performed often in the past decade. Congolese music was very influential in Colombia, made popular on the Caribbean coast via the huge soundsystem street parties that spawned the Champeta music scene of the 70s-80s. This has spawned a resurgence of interest in Soukous music in Colombia.

A couple hours later, a stripped down version of the Congolese band Kokoko! made a much anticipated appearance, performing an evening nightclub set in Brooklyn. Over recent years, Kokoko! has gained notoriety as a collective of musical sound artists who grew out of Kinshasa’s DIY scene and burst on to the international scene after the release of System K, a documentary film by Renaud Barret. The film, released in 2020, documents the vibrant creative artistic response to the chaos of a failed system. Artists creating art and instruments from trash and discarded electronics is vividly portrayed by the filmmaker. The band Kokoko! performed the soundtrack using percussion, string and electronic instruments made from locally sourced and recycled objects.

Unlike the last tour, this version of Kokoko! performed at Public Records as a stripped down duo, including artists Makara Bianko, and electronics wizard Débruit. The two filled the room with a scorching set that livened up the crowd, and on this tour they exchanged the anticipated homemade instruments for a drum pad and electronics, distilling the various organic elements of the full group’s sound elements and reassembling the music into a driving processed 45 minutes of peak energy. The crowd was enthralled with the performance and the percussion, bass and electronics provided a thundering trance to the room of spectators.

Perhaps the days of exhorting dancers through a bullhorn have past, but we will know more soon as new music is in the works from the band on the Night Department label.

Nkumu Katalay, Grace Haukwa, dancer, Julian Apter on Rhythm Guitar, Hussein Kalondji on mi-solo (second Rhythm) , Annette Lipson (congas) and vocalists Teddy Maggaspoon ( yellow shirt).