MBONGWANA STAR (EN)

Mbongwana Star are a young group from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although two of their seven members, Coco Ngambali and Theo Nzonza, had already worked with the legendary group Staff Benda Bilili.
In the slums of Kinshasa, groups emerge and disappear constantly – it is a world in which everything is in flux. Music, instruments, fashion, jewelry, bicycles, motor vehicles all pile up and are recycled from the endless heaps of scrap. To create Mbongwana Star, Mbongwana meaning change, Coco and Theo recruited the key elements of the group from their own young generation.
They met Liam Farrell, aka Doctor L, an independent musician from the Parisian hip-hop/electro scene, and producer of Tony Allen’s “Black Voices” album. Farrell brought the spirit of punk into the heart of the vibrant Kinshasa scene. Mbongwana Star listened to his sound; avalanches of percussion, guitars and vocals produced to breaking point under their own energy: the collaboration became inevitable.
The result: an exciting fusion (The Guardian suggested this word may be too soft), of traditional Congolese rhythms, European bass-punk, and electro.