At its core, punk is a style about rejecting the molds of modernity, and expressing oneself. It converges the fashion world with the musical world, and what is birthed is a genre of self expression that has influenced so many artists over the years since its inception.
This subculture has a long history in the Western world, with legacy acts like The Sex Pistols and The Clash being the first bands to pop into people’s heads, the punk mindset has found a stronghold in one of the largest cities in Africa, Kinshasa. The capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo — as well as its sister city of Brazzaville, located on the other side of the Congo River and the capital of the Republic of the Congo — has always found itself embracing new fashion movements, and scoring them with innovative sounds. You can trace this legacy back to the emergence of La Sape — a fashion movement that can be compared to the dandies in the United States — that was confirmed to be present in the ‘30s, but likely began before then. Though the ‘60s weren’t kind to the sapeurs and sapeuses, a soukous musician by the name of Papa Wemba became the face of la sape. Wemba and la sape re-emerged in the ‘70s as a way to rebel against the kleptocratic rule of Mobutu Sese Seko, and Wemba was described by saxophonist Manu Dibango as the man who helped to shift narratives regarding Africa and the elegance of the African people.
In the 2010s, African haute couture houses began to be developed, and for a number of fashion designers, they had to reconcile with the immense amount of industrial waste that was dumped into the continent, especially within Kinshasa. Sidonie Latere, head of the Regional Fashion Institute in Africa (IRMA) was quoted as saying that African fashion can “create an industry that turns this [environmental] waste into works of art.” This motif has found its way into music, as a number of punk artists in the bustling city have also elected to use discarded items to make their music.
The most prominent group taking this philosophy and running with it is KOKOKO! The quintet was formed after the producer Débruit met the other members of the band at a block party in the Ngwaka neighborhood in 2016. Two of them, Boms Bomolo and Dido Oweke, were members of a collective who made DIY instruments. The DIY nature of the band, combined with Débruit’s alternative electronic production created a sound that only they could replicate. From kick drums taken from ventilation systems, cymbals from a motorcycle wheel, a cassette-tape talk box and bells from car parts, their DIY nature is at the core of their sound. This sound found an audience across the globe, from their inclusion on the GTA Online Soundtrack, multiple performances on KEXP and a Tiny Desk Performance, KOKOKO! has proven that punk authenticity transcends national and cultural boundaries, resonating with the exact people who their music was meant for.
KOKOKO! is by no means the first Congolese band to incorporate DIY instrumentation in their music. One of the first is Konono Nᵒ1, which was formed in 1966 by truck driver and likembé player Mingiedi Mawangu as a likembé ensemble. Mawangu noted how the likembé is a relatively quiet instrument, and to make the instrument heard in the bustling noise of Kinshasa, fashioned his own electronic likembé out of car parts, which blew out numerous amplifiers. The band broke out into international success and fame with their 2004 album Congotronics, which put them on the radar of Björk, who collaborated with the group on “Earth Intruders.” This album also won Konono Nᵒ1 the BBC World Music Award for Best Newcomer in 2006, which Mawangu found humorous, stating “I think you are the newcomers, not me” to the Guardian. Currently led by Mawangu’s grandson Makonda, the group continues to push the boundaries of what Congolese music can be, even more than 60 years after their founding.
One of the founders of Mbongwana Star, Liam “Doctor L” Farrell, described the sound of Kinshasa which influences the sound of not just Mbongwana Star, but other Kinshasan punk outfits in a way that paraphrasing simply cannot capture. In an interview with Andy Morgan, Farrell said that “here, in the streets, it’s the anti-technology thing that works. Everything’s recorded in the red! Sometimes I over-boost mikes that are recording nothing, just to pick up the kind of environment that’s around me now. Can you hear it? There are three TVs going full blast. Distortion multiplies the energy. I love it!” Formed after the split of legendary street performing collective Staff Benda Bilili, the band’s name means ‘change’ in Lingala, as a reference to how the band changed all of the rules to what music could be. As member “Theo” Nsituvuidi Nzonza said, “we decided to take control. We choose to produce our music ourselves… We also changed the rhythm. We built a tempo that can wake up any dancefloor on the planet.” Upon the founding of the band, Nzonza was in his fifties, and fellow singer and songwriter “Coco” Yakala Ngambali was turning sixty, and the pair grew up on rumba. Transitioning to a punk rock sound at their age was no easy task, but their resiliency is something that actually drew them to punk. Both Nzonza and Ngambali are wheelchair bound as a result of them contracting polio as children, but they found ways to develop as professionals and musicians in spite of life’s challenges. The pair also brought in a trio of other musicians, decades younger than themselves to add to Mbongwana Star’s sound. These members, percussionist Randy Makana Kalambayi, guitarist Jean-Claude “R9” Kamina Mulodi and Ngambali’s stepson Sage, brought a new sound to the band, as well as adding to the intentional genre-crossing sound the band has cultivated. Mbongwana Star is a representation of the city that has birthed the punk attitudes that the band sonically expresses.
The names that bands have often impacted the way people first interpret their sound. No band is more representative of this than Fulu Miziki. With a name that means “music from the garbage” in Lingala, the afrofuturist collective hammers home not just their sound, but also their visual aesthetic. Every part of the group is found in the various dumps of the city. Emerging from the Ngwaka neighborhood, much in the same way as KOKOKO!, the band also takes an ecological approach to their art, with vocalist Tshé Tshé even pleading on France 24 to not make Africa the world’s dumping ground. Their approach to performance art, fashion and music is something they pride themselves in. Their DIY nature even applies to their instrumentation, as when they toured Europe in 2022, two of their suitcases were lost in Rome, leaving them to improvise new instruments ahead of a festival appearance. Fulu Miziki is living proof that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and that the waste the West leaves behind will be the soundtrack for a collective revolution in both fashion and music.
One of the hotter names within this punk movement is Wilfried Luzele Vulu, better known as Lova Lova. Beginning as an artist in 2016, his initial music leaned into a soukous and rumba sound. However, his project Bokonzi sheds the more-traditional contemporary Congolese sound for one that is more futuristic. Melding the electro-punk sound which KOKOKO! helped to propagate in Kinshasa with a dancehall-influenced rapping ends up with an addictive sound that more polished artforms simply fail to capture. Luzele himself admits that, saying that “I’m not a very good singer, but when you’re in a trance, you transcend all that stuff about notes and scales.” Though we only have a handful of projects from Luzele available here in the West, he has burst through in a way that I am so excited to see, and am eagerly awaiting whatever he does next.
This punk sentiment has also followed Congolese musicians through the diaspora. The best example of this is Tshegue. Similarly named after a Lingala term, this one meaning “street child,” the punk nature of Kinshasa has followed frontwoman Faty Sy Savanet to Paris, where she met Franco-Cuban musician Nicolas Dacunha. Adding to the already impressive history that Cuban music has had on the music scene in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tshegue takes this punk aesthetic and adds the additional angle of being an outsider in the Western world. Even though their more recent music has taken a more-pop approach, their aesthetic and approach to music remains unapologetically punk.
Punk isn’t dead, it just found a new home in Kinshasa. Innovating on all fronts, Kinshasan punk is just beginning, and soon will become a mainstay in contemporary punk discussion.
