congaplace.com

Posted: **Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:30 pm**

Do any of you other old timers, especially any Brits here, remember the bevy of West African congueros working on the European Jazz and Pop scene in the 60's and 70's? Nigerians Rebop Kwaku Baah and Rocky Dzidzornu, or Ghanians Guy Warren and Remi Kabaka? These cats were the first call guys to spice up a calypso or Jazz tune, most later working the rock circuit with folks like Traffic, Ginger Baker, and the Stones.
What is puzzling is that it was mainly English-speaking Ghana and Nigeria which produced these congueros. Angola and Zaire, the ancestral home of the Cuban makuta, ngoma, and tambor yuka drums, countries which went crazy for the Cuban Son in the 1950's, seems to have been immune to tumba tapping.
Titos Sampa is the only Central African guy I know who took a turn at the Cuban tumbas, but even he seems to favor his own culture area's tubs. Does anyone care to weigh in on this bit of conga minutia?

Saludos,

Berimbau

Posted: **Tue Mar 07, 2006 3:27 am**

Greetings Berimbau,
There is one conguero from Zaire that I know of - the great percussionist and elder statesman Kanyinda 'Koko' Mukala. He visited my city (Adelaide, South Australia) to play at Womad in '97.

A few days before his gig at WOMAD he ran some master classes. I still remember those classes and Zairean rhythms, it was a great experience. I always remember him as a very friendly and humble man and great teacher.

there's quite a bit about him on the web, see these urls for example:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/onyourstreet/mskoko1.shtml

http://www.culturalco-operation.org//upload/atINET184pdfpath.pdf

Here's an excerpt from an interview with him (from the first url) in which he discusses his view on the origin of rumba:

"So he asks her to go out with him. It's a rumba which is the most popular music of the Congo. It started in the 1950's when our first guitarist, Wendo So, took a guitar from the Belgian guitarists and evolved the rumba.

The traditional beat of my tribe is also related to the rumba which ended up in Cuba and came back to us.

We sing our music in Lingala which comes from my tribe, Bangala but it was the language used by the military originally. When I'm performing this song I feel very happy because when you play a love song you've got to be happy to make it work!"

Now there's food for thought...

cheers
Pavlo

Edited By pavloconga on 1141703000

Posted: **Tue Mar 07, 2006 3:30 am**

Here is a pic of Kanyinda Mukala, Zairean conguero.

P

Attachment: http://mycongaplace.com/forum/eng/uploa ... -koko2.jpg

Posted: **Tue Mar 07, 2006 3:31 am**

Heres another of Kanyinda Mukala:
BTW I think he's still based in London.
P

Edited By pavloconga on 1141702420

Attachment: http://mycongaplace.com/forum/eng/uploa ... MUKA_1.jpg

Posted: **Tue Mar 07, 2006 3:45 am**

Hey Pavloconga!
Thanks for the images! Do you know anything about these guy's careers? What sort of conga techniques might they employ?

Muchos Gracias,

Berimbau

Posted: **Tue Mar 07, 2006 4:39 am**

Here's some info from his site for his band "Soukous Koumbele", gives some details of his career:

"Koko Kanyinda is an outstanding drummer and vocalist from Congo. He plays djembe and congas and is the last surviving conga player from the first generation of Congolese music. He was taught by the great master drummer Kadima. In his early career Koko played with a number of musicians in his homeland including Docteur Nico, Papa Noel and Sam Magwana and also with Vox Africa and Cercul Jazz.

In 1977 Koko formed his own band Mangelepa which was highly successful in East and Southern Africa, recording 17 singles and two albums. Following the breakup of Mangelepa Koko joined the Real Sounds of Africa, touring Europe in the mid 80s.

In 1990 Koko decided to settle in Britain and taught drumming in Bristol and founded the band Magoma. In 1994 he moved to London and formed Soukous Koumbele. Over the years Koko has held drumming workshops in many different countries including Spain, Italy, Germany, Finland, USA and Australia working through the WOMAD organisation.

In 2000 Koko toured with Mose Fan Fan and he is also a member of the Master Drummers of Africa, a spectacular company whose recent tour in November took them to many of the major cities in the UK.

In Soukous Koumbele Koko has assembled a group of superb African musicians to play Soukous, the sunshine music of Africa."

http://www.accessallareas.info/soukous.html
-------------------

To answer your question about his conga technique, well, what I can remember from that time was that he had a beautiful feel and sounds on the congas, as well as singing great songs while he played. Very different style to Cuban conga players, but he was all about the groove.
ciao
Pavlo

Posted: **Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:31 pm**

Most african drummers have what I call a "split hand" approach to playing. That means one hand, on one drum each. Instead of working from one drum in the middle to the others...very similar to the style of Candido Camero,who actually popularized that style in the 50's, in New York city. One of my teachers had that "split hand" indepedant approach, and i can still play tumbao on the tumba(with my right hand) and segunda in my left hand simultaneously, for guaguanco...you have to see it, to see how it works.....though my teacher could play guaguanco on 2 congas and quinto with his left hand, seperate and independant from his right...it was amazing to watch..and try to learn......"JC" Johnny Conga....

Posted: **Wed Mar 08, 2006 1:14 am**

Hey JC!
Did you know Titos Sampa when he was in NYC? As to the split hand style, I learned it when I studied percussion with Nana Vasconcelos in the 1970's. I remember that he was exclusively playing congas in the split hand style, even when he interpreted Cuban ritmos like guaguanco!
Now this didn't go over to well with some of the Cuban and Puerto Rican drummers when I played it for them .............it seems that they preferred their traditional approach.

Saludos,

Berimbau

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African congueros - African musicians who play Cuban tumbas