Comments on: Helen of Congo

By: antipop

antipop — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:52:49 +0000

Props for the diversity on the site. I am greek and for the information of your readers I d’like to say that the rembetika tracks you have posted are real rare underground gems. As for the lyrical content, Mobb Deep have called it “drug music”. Therapeutic for the user/you slam dance (= zeimbekiko!) to it.

By: tiscert

tiscert — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:50:33 +0000

i read gary stewart’s book. great scholarship!!! i’m over 50 (born somewhere in west africa) and grew up on a daily diet of ‘congolese’ music. so let’s see if i can give you the lowdown on some of the questions you asked. the greek-congolese musical connection was a result of the ‘fluid’ status greek immigrants had in colonial society. they were’nt colonisers and had no snobbish attitudes towards indigenous society and culture (probably some colonialists considered them ‘natives’ – remember in south africa they werent really considered whites. see if you can get some colonial literature). they were better able to feel the emotional pulse of the society because they dirtied their hands by having close contact with ‘natives’ – and so with a bit of money to invest what do you get people into your general store? so you had the jeronimidis and papadimitriou ans moussa benatar (a cypriot jew) etc. same pattern with jamaican music. the chinese were brought to the west indies after the abolition of slavery as cartel slaves – and later got into commerce. and how do you get people to come to your shop? music. so we’ve got the the veteran ‘byron lee and the dragonnaires’ – jamaica’s glorious calypso/soca veteran musician and producer – who is of chinese stock (those old enough will remember the band in their appearance and soundtrack in the james bond flick ‘dr. no). …and then reggae producers jojo hookim, leslie kong, randy chin, and of course the sound system pioneer ‘tom the great sebastian’ etc. a bit too long? i’ll stop here. just remember: globalisation started a long time ogo. but it’s underground history.

By: JW

JW — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:41:41 +0000

Indeed, great stuff! I’ve been reading the same book (R on the R). In terms of 78s, the first few chapters are completely essential. All the Opikas, Loningisas and Ngomas that I’ve either found on my own, or have heard firsthand (apart from all the wonderful stuff on the Ngoma and Roots of Rhumba comps) are truly beautiful. There was also what looks to have been a subsidiary of Opika that doesn’t seem to appear in any of the books: Kina was the name. I’ve only tracked down one. Anyone else?

And one can hardly go wrong with anything by the great Rosa Eskenazi.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:03:57 +0000

Interesting idea. I’ve wondered similarly about Jamaica – If the Chinese-Jamaican record producers had any influence on Chinese themed reggae and ska of the 60s and 70s (Augustus Pablo, Lee Perry, Desmond Dekker…)

By: Georg Müller

Georg Müller — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:17:02 +0000

The OK Jazz and the Rochereau tracks are outstanding. Thanks!

By: El Greco

El Greco — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:10:42 +0000

Γεια σου Matt,
this is a very interesting post to me! Since I’m living on the Greek island of Samos for some months now (originally being from Germany and not considering going back already), the story about the Greek-Gongolese musical relation really amazed me. I didn’t know anything about that before.
I’ve been liking Rembetika and, of course, most any kind of African music, so thanks for this historical trip!
Keep up this site, it’s really interesting!
Γεια χαρα,
El Greco

P.S.: Greek letters meaning
1. Hello!
2. Good-bye, happiness to you

By: nk

nk — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:44:15 +0000

rumba on the river is a fantastic book. thanks for posting these songs.

By: NGOMA

NGOMA — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:24:58 +0000

NGOMA!