Papa Wemba, often called the King of Rhumba Rock, was born in Kasai, Zaire. Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba first made his mark in 1970 in Kinshasa, where he was a singer, composer, and co-founder of the great youth group Zaiko Langa Langa. In 1974 he left to form his own band, Isife Lokole, and then in '76 began Viva La Musica.

Hoping to reach a wider audience he ended up in Paris in the early '80s, bringing with him the entire line-up of Viva La Musica. Wemba's musical vision went beyond the capabilities of his seasoned Zairen rhumba rockers as he began to experiment with a wide range of eclectic sounds.

Wemba's quite a stylish fellow, a sapeur, an aficionado of fashionable, well-designed clothing. His trendy suits with big jacket, and baggy, though tailored pants, are a strange mix of Africa, Paris, and the American zoot suit. A Soukous show is always a fashion event, and Wemba is a man of great style and taste.

While the celebrated musical form known as "Congolese rumba" first took the Black Continent by storm in the fifties, this music uncannily retains its youthful visage today, as if face-lifted by some timelessly hip plastic surgeons of African popular dance music. Among the "surgeons" (ought we say sorcerers ?) who have helped the rumba protect its see- mingly eternal youth, Papa Wemba is surely one of the most inspired and influential. This man is everything we love in the Congolese man, with that typical wry combination of wit, humor, and sheer talent! What a proud son of Kinshasa, a temple of intelligence - and home to the most colorful and vivid French in the entire French-speaking world! The Origins of a Vocation to Sing Papa Wemba (né Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba) was born in the southern Congo region of the Kasaï River, as the eldest child in his family, which settled in Leopoldville, the capital of the Belgian Congo, shortly after his birth. Wemba's father had fought in the Belgian army during the Second World War, and later become a hunter. Wemba's mother was a professional mourner in traditional Congolese funerals, where Wemba had his initiation in public singing. Though the passion for music born of those encounters never abated in Wemba, his father wanted to bar him from a musi-
cal career, having planned for his son a different career as a lawyer or journalist. When Wemba's father died in 1966 the only real obstacle between Wemba and his musical ambitions disappeared. Wemba began to sing in his parish church, where he experimented with the singular shrill voice which still characterizes his style.

Jules Presley
In the late sixties, Papa Wemba sang with various bands of the capital (renamed Kinshasa after Congo's independence in 1960) and like so many young African musicians and fans he was attracted by English and American pop music, to the degree that when he began his solo career he did so performing under the name of "Jules Presley". Wemba took part in 1969 in the formation of the most important Zairian band of the seventies - Zaïko Lango Lango. A new musical generation in Africa was waiting to pounce on its chances. In the fifties and sixties, Africa had danced to the Afro-Cuban rumba, introduced by its first great star Joseph Kabasele and continued by Luambo Makiadi, known as Franco. When rock music arrived on Africa's airwaves and shores with new beats and more excited rhythms, the rumba suddenly appeared too quiet, too slow. In a word, it had begun to sound tired - exhausted. Something new had -to be discovered. Zaïko Lango Lango seized the opportunity, revolutionizing the old- fashioned rumba with new drum patterns and electric instruments. Their success was immediate. Having emerged as leader of the band, Papa Wemba found himself firmly in the limelight. But Wemba quit Zaïko suddenly in 1975, staking his reputation on his own new band, which embraced more traditional elements, called Isifi Lokole. ("Isifi" is an acronym, in French, for "Institute of Ideological Science for the Formation of Idols". "Lokole" is the name of the traditional percussion of the Kasaï River region). Just one year later, Isifi Lokole took on another incarnation, under the name Yoko Lokole, but the successor group was not long for this world. For a few months in 1975 Wemba also sang with the Afrisa International Orchestra, created by Tabu Ley, another important Congolese musical personality with whom Wemba had collaborated in the sixties.

Viva la musica
Finally coming completely into his own as a bandleader, Papa Wemba created the fourteen-piece Viva la musica in 1977. Viva la musica is still alive today after nearly thirty years. As a twenty-seven-year-old star at that time, Wemba's presence extended beyond Kinshasa's music scene. His unique artistic aura imposed a whole new style, a whole new art of living, on his city and country. In a suburb of Kinshasa, Wemba recreated a traditional village, known as Molokai Village, declaring himself its leader and announcing his intention to govern the community according to traditional customs. This paradoxical utopia - at once modern and traditional - cultivated some distinctive marks of belonging as the "new art of living" found expression in speech, in clothing (as with the famous "Papa's beret" and other fashion statements), and in other areas. In 1980, Papa Wemba traveled throughout Africa on the strength of his continent-wide smash hit "Analengo". But shortly thereafter fate extended a new attraction to Wemba: the European adventure, in France at first. Working in France meant a chance to enjoy the adulation and material support of a sizeable and influential Congolese community, of course, but, above all, it placed at Wemba's disposal the creative dynamism and technical sophistication of Paris's recording studios. After an ever more prolonged period of Wemba's "exile" during the course of 1982, a rumor arose and grew in Zaire: Papa Wemba was dead, he had been murdered! Turning into collective hysteria, the rumor obliged Wemba to return home, at least to show himself, to prove he was still alive. Zaïre greeted the return of its living musical idol as if he were a king or a god. In the meantime, a new African music had begun to seduce European ears, and to attract European record companies to Zaire. But because he was bound by contract to Franco's label Visa 80, Wemba's first official collaborations with Europeans were to be delayed for several years.

World music
During nearly thirty years of international performances with Viva la musica, Papa Wemba has been a crucial ambassador of African music. But apart from that ambassadorial role, he has first and foremost been a savvy musical intelligence capable of revealing, in music, much about the spirit of our times. While offering his music throughout the world, Wemba has also judiciously in- troduced some musical elements form around the world into his own music. Through certain revolutionary encounters, some curious and potent boundary-crossings have emerged, allowing his music to become one of the interesting melting pots of what we nowadays do not hesitate to term "world music". In this context, Wemba's eventual meeting with Peter Gabriel, one of the great names of world music, seemed almost an inevitability. The first contact between Wemba and Gabriel occurred in 1992, and its fruits included a contract with Real World, Gabriel's hand-crafted record label (or ought we say laboratory ?). "Le voyageur" (The Traveler) was the first Real World album by Wemba - both an artistic and commercial success. A second album, "Emotion", went on to earn sales of more than 500, 000 copies in 1995. "Molokaï", released in 1998, was Wemba's final album for Real World. In the space of a few short years, Wemba and Gabriel had substantially altered the musical landscape with their common efforts. Moving on to completely independent choices and experiments with his music, Wemba offered us, in 1999, an album titled "Mzee fulangenge" ("The Wise Man Who Sends Out Happiness"), produced by Alfred Nzimbi, an old companion of Ray Lema's in the famous Bobongo Stars. "Mzee fulangenge" was a dance-oriented mix of "soukouss", zouk, R & B, and even salsa (with Latin music immortal Tito Puente as a guest star), a sophisticated attempt at a personally-defined musical synthesis to "round off" (as Wemba saw it) his personal world music styles. Papa Wemba embarked on a series of new challenges in 2001: an American tour with his now mythic band, Viva la musica, followed by a new album, and culminating in an unforgettable New Year's Eve concert at the 16,000-capacity Palais Omnisports de Bercy in Paris (France's largest indoor venue for pop music). For all of the glories and perquisites of being an established international star, Papa Wemba does not forget his roots. He has remained personally involved in the life of his country in a number of ways, but especially by putting his celebrity to use in ongoing projects to promote new musical talent in the country. The Fula Ngenge Festival, in Kinshasa, aimed especially at the discovery of new artists, bears Wemba's fingerprints. As a respected heavyweight in the world music circuits of the international scene, as one of the single most influential African musicians of all time who has helped put Afro-Pop music on the map, Wemba can be proud that, for thirty years, an entire generation, and more than one, have, step by step, passionately followed the adventures of the man from Kasaï and made them their own.

And now ?
After a career hiatus of a few years occasioned by an unhappy conflict with French justice which made front-page news throughout Africa and elsewhere, Papa Wemba, strengthened by an opportunity to meditate upon his life and artistic aims, has decided to concentrate on what he knows and does best: to make powerful and uplifting music and to touch people in their soul. The great Congolese star has just signed with a new Paris-based label, Synchronies Music. With this new team, Papa knows he must be up to the mark. More than ever, he wants to prove something with his next album, whose release is planned for the end of 2006. This work-in-progress may well reveal itself as a turning point in Wemba's career. In anticipation of the new (as yet untitled) album, fans will also be able to enjoy a his- torically unique event in Papa's career: his very first live album! In February 2006, at the intimate New Morning music hall in Paris, Papa, surrounded himself with Patrick Bebey and other friends for a rendition of some his greatest hits (including "Salakeba", "Maria Valencia", and "Show Me the Way"). The album will be released June 8th, together with a bonus DVD of the entire New Morning performance and a surprise: the first recording of "Ye Te Oh", Papa's new single, that already sounds like an enormous hit.