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Koffi Olomide
& Quartier Latin Internationale
Royal Festival Hall, London - 30 March
2005
Feature and photos copyright Martin
Sinnock
Editors Note: All photos copyright Martin
Sinnock - March 2005. Unauthorized use is prohibited.
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| When it was initially
advertised that Koffi Olomide would appear at the series of events known
as Africa Remix in London’s celebrated South Bank Centre I was sceptical
about the likelihood of Koffi and the full Quartier Latin entourage
actually arriving. It is extremely difficult for a large Congolese
orchestre comprising in excess of 25 musicians and dancers to
organise themselves for a UK appearance scheduled to commence at 1730
hours. However I remained hopeful that the experienced and well
resourced promoters would be able to deal with the notoriously difficult
UK authorities who have become even more reluctant to issue work permits
and entry visas following Papa Wemba’s human trafficking scandal. |
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Only
four years earlier, in 2001, I had been equally doubtful about Koffi’s
scheduled appearance at the New York City Lincoln Center Festival. On
that occasion I was proved spectacularly wrong when his 27 piece
ensemble, which included eight young female dancers, appeared at the La
Guardia “Fame School” concert hall. The event turned out to be one of
those landmark performances that even warranted a review and photograph
in the New York Times (Check out the LINK to our feature on this
event). |
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| In exactly the same way
that he had broken across to a different audience in New York City the
Africa Remix concert of Koffi Olomide at London’s prestigious Royal
Festival Hall on the River Thames South Bank was an opportunity for
Africa’s biggest selling artist to perform to a predominantly
non-Congolese public and press for the first time in the UK. Whilst
Koffi has been a regular visitor to London he has always previously
played to the ex-pat Congolese audience in remote venues in Hackney,
Tottenham, Stratford, Stonebridge Park, and Brixton. His usual
performances are lengthy, late-start, all-night affairs that the
Congolese and some other African audiences find perfectly normal. Most
non-Congolese fans of African music are reluctant to travel to remote
and isolated venues for performances that frequently don’t commence
until 0100 or 0200 hours in the morning and continue for up to five
hours. |
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performance on the 30 March was part of a lengthy series of major events
billed as Africa Remix and taking place in some upmarket and prestigious
central London venues. Support and publicity was received from the
mainstream press as well as “World Music” magazines like Songlines.
Consequently the public that attended were probably not as familiar with
Koffi’s music as they might be with the work of other major African
artists who have received more publicity in the West.
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| The capacity audience
were to witness a remarkable concert by one of the world’s great live
performers. What most of the audience would not have even known is that
the line-up of Koffi’s Quartier Latin International was made up of
London based Congolese musicians. Koffi was booked to make a series of
appearances in South Africa immediately following the London performance
and he chose to leave his band back in Africa and use some of the
talented musicians that now base themselves in London. |
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| Appointed as chef
d’orchestre in charge of recruitment and musical arrangements was
Safro Manzangi. Safro is the rhythm guitarist, originally a member of
Papa Wemba’s Viva la Musica, who broke away with King Kester Emeneya and
a large part of Wemba’s musicians to form Victoria Eleison in the early
eighties. For many years Safro and his former colleague in Victoria
Eleison, soloist “Satana” Mongo Ley, have been based in the UK where
they have continued to perform with many of the visiting stars of
Congolese music. For this major appearance with Koffi Olomide Safro
told me that he was faced with a big problem: Every Congolese musician
in London wanted to be part of the impromptu group. He went on to
explain to me how musicians were almost begging him to take them into
the entourage. Furthermore, when it became known that female dancers
would be auditioned there was a queue of nubile young girls stretching
down the road. It was originally intended that Safro would bring Satana
into the group for the show but in the end Koffi asked one of his former
Quartier Latin guitarists Lebou Kabuya, now based in Paris, to come
over.
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| Another ex member of the
group Champion Esthetique, one of Congolese music’s most exceptional
drummers, was also invited by Koffi to re-take his place at the core of
the rhythm section. The rest of the temporary Quartier Latin squad were
duly auditioned and recruited by Safro. Joining Lebou and Safro were
two more guitarists Shaber and Christian plus bass player Claude Bula.
Young keyboard player Longo filled out the sound whilst Tanzanian conga
player Saidi Kanda boosted the percussion department. Attempting to
replace Koffi’s vocal line-up is an impossible task but Safro wisely
chose a couple of solid UK based singers Rabbi Makuta (a former member
of Defao’s Big Stars) and Nickens Nkoso. In addition he picked some
younger guys Gianni, Ido, animateur Charmant, and the centre
stage attraction (both vocally and for his expressive dancing) Rossignol
Koshar. Not only did Rossignol sound good but he bore an uncanny
resemblance to Quartier Latin singer Fally Ipupa – so much so that even
Koffi started to call him Fally during the rehearsals. Rather than
attempting to recreate the complex dance routines of Koffi’s troupe of
Koffiettes it was decided to recruit just two female dancers from
London – Naomi and Stoney. These two young girls may have little
experience of performing with top Congolese bands but the effort that
they put into their appearance with Koffi was as good as virtually any
of the better known female dancers I have ever seen. The band had spent
five days rehearsing enough material for a two hour performance and they
totally committed themselves to the task. |
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\Starting
the performance with a “generique” it seemed initially that the show
might stumble into disaster at the first hurdle. Lebou had a connection
problem with his guitar lead and was badly out of tune (too many beers
before the show?), and the sound balance was all over the place. After
a few minutes the musicians found some kind of semblance of order and
they went into the anthemic song “Micko” after which Koffi bounced onto
the stage with confidence and enthusiasm. He flashed a couple of severe
looks across to Lebou who quickly received the message and managed to
sort his guitar problem for the rest of the performance. Koffi oozed
charm, chatted in his broken English, smiled a lot, and sang like the
experienced and consummate artist he is. The set balanced out old
favourites with a couple of new tunes. Having started his performance
with the ballad “Coucou”, from his older repertoire, Koffi lifted the
excitement with “Andrada”. This was followed by the tour-de-force
“Magie” in which they resurrected the old Ndombolo dance step –
to the delight of the audience. From the recent album, Monde Arabe,
came the classic lengthy ballad “Silivi” followed by the powerful
“Respect”, finally closing the show with more of the dynamic current
Quartier Latin “generique”. |
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| Alright – this was not a
true Quartier Latin spectacle. A stripped down stand-in band with two
local dancing girls sounds like it might have turned out to be a huge
disappointment. However this event was just as enjoyable as many of the
full Quartier Latin performances I have seen. By restricting themselves
to less than two hours stage-time the musicians were able to throw their
full effort into pleasing the crowd. Singer Rossignol was particularly
active – pulling faces to the audience and exaggerating his dance steps
to almost comical levels. The backing musicians were solid and the two
girls were cute, enthusiastic and full of character. Koffi was
masterful and showed himself to be a good ambassador for Congolese music
by keeping the show tight, and by making the audience feel involved.
Clearly the audience were impressed and the only negative reaction came
from a London evening newspaper whose reviewer declared the show to be
"horrible", “cacophonous”, “excruciating” and “the aural equivalent of a
marathon – with blisters”. Clearly the reviewer was unfamiliar with
Olomide’s music (I’d heard him asking the promoter for a list of song
titles before the performance) and he was obviously unprepared for the
Olomide “live experience”. |
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| Prior to the show I
chatted to Koffi in his dressing room and he acknowledged that this
event was an opportunity to expose his music beyond the African
audience. (The BBC actually recorded part of the show for broadcast).
I compared it to his first New York City performance – an event that he
remembers very favourably. His fondness for North America was clearly
evident as he enthused about his visit to Niagara Falls and particularly
for some vacation time that he and his wife had spent in Florida. This
prompted me to ask about the slightly thorny issue of the title of his
most recent album Monde Arabe. There has been some criticism
from some quarters of the Congolese media suggesting that the album
packaging might be construed as provocative in the light of 911. Koffi
happily made it very clear to me that his Arab influenced attire and the
album title bore no relevance to 911. He emphasised, with good humour,
that the title is not THE Arab World it is just Arab World.
This explanation I took to mean that his title merely acknowledges that
there is an “Arab World” but the world is not “The Arab World” (i.e. The
Arab world is just another culture that helps to enrich the planet).
This I sincerely hope is a fair judgement on what Koffi was trying to
explain to me. |
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I’ve
been privileged to meet Koffi Olomide several times over a period of 15
years and often in quite different circumstances. These days I find him
far more relaxed, convivial and communicative. His concerts are always
interesting and usually spectacular. His recordings are also of a very
high standard – even though some of his recent albums are starting to
sound a little repetitive and lengthy. Without doubt he is one of the
world’s greatest artists.
Martin
Sinnock |
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