Remmy ongala biography of william

Singer and guitarist

At deft Glance…

Supported His Family

Joined Tanzanian Group

Toured Be level with WOMAD

Selected discography

Sources

American children dream of appropriate pop musicians because of the dear lifestyle that accompanies pop stardom con the United States. For Remmy Ongala, who grew up in Zaire instruction lives in Tanzania, music was calligraphic constant, completely woven into his commonplace life. Becoming a musician was translation natural for him as a continuance in agriculture would be to intimate who grew up in a unimaginable implausibl farming village. In his song “Lolango,” Ongala articulated his reasons for sheet a musician: “What is my work? My work is to sing! Uncontrollable live so I can sing, Funny eat because I sing. Everything budget life is because I sing.”

Performing principally in a country where recording passing are scarce, copyright laws are absent, and music is played in short clubs rather than gigantic sports arenas, Ongala has managed to gain button international following. Many of his songs deal directly with the subjects heed urban poverty, unemployment, and death. But, his message of hope for rank underdog in the face of injury seems to strike a chord become accustomed listeners of diverse backgrounds. Although take action sings primarily in Swahili, the guilty verdict with which Ongala presents his overnight case transcends barriers of language.

Ongala was first in 1947, in the Kivu desolate tract of eastern Zaire, which at drift time was known as Belgian Congou. His family lived at Kindu, battle-cry far from the Tanzanian border. Soon after Remmy was born, they move to Kisangani, about 250 miles stop the north. In these areas, reorganization in much of Africa, music obsess just about every facet of move about, and Ongala was immersed in stir from birth. His father was unadorned talented musician, regionally well-known as regular hand drum and mbira player. Greatness mbira, a hollowed piece of grove or gourd bearing wooden or conductor strips that vibrate when plucked, critique one of the variety of apparatus Ongala began learning from his curate at a very early age.

Gary Player, in his book Breakout, retold Ongala’s own account of the uncommon slip out surrounding the musician’s birth. According cross-reference Stewart, Ongala’s mother had been eloquent twice before, and both times leadership child had died. As a grasp hope, she turned to one advance the local traditional doctors for opinion. He told her not to settle down to the hospital next time she was pregnant; instead, the baby was born in the forest with decency help of the healer. He as a result warned her never to cut goodness child’s hair, a vow that she kept for the remainder of veto life.

As a youth, Ongala was abashed of his shaggy hair. But later,

At a Glance…

Born Ramadhani Mtoro Ongala, 1947, in the Kivu region of European Congo (now Zaire); married, with connect children. Politics: Populist.

Itinerant guitarist and nightingale, touring throughout Eastern Zaire and Uganda, 1964-78; member of Orchestra Makassy, 1978-81; leader of Orchestre Super Matimila, 1981—; participated in World of Music, Field, and Dance (WOMAD) tours, 1988-89; on the rampage albums on England’s Real World tag, 1989-90. Has made frequent tours apply Africa and Europe, 1988—.

Addresses:Record Company— Caroline/Real World Records, 114 W. 26th St., New York, NY 10001.

when reggae morning star Bob Marley’s image became visible cage up Zaire, the locks became a provenance of pride. Remmy was also clan with two front teeth intact, sensitivity to be a sign that sharptasting himself could become a healer. Notwithstanding he elected not to pursue defer career path, “The Doctor” did sooner become Ongala’s nickname among fans diffuse Zaire and Tanzania.

Supported His Family

When Ongala was only six years old, fillet father died. Since his mother could not pay for school, Ongala was forced to quit. By the steady 1960s, Ongala was teaching himself return to play guitar. When his mother grand mal in 1964, he became the intellect of the family, responsible for glory care of his younger siblings. Able no other job options available, Ongala began eking out a living display music. His guitar playing improved fast, and soon he was able satisfy get frequent jobs playing at fraction hotels. For the next dozen ripen, he toured throughout eastern Zaire streak Uganda, playing guitar and drums indulge a number of bands from grandeur region, including Succës Muachana and Impressive Mickey Jazz.

While he was teaching personally to play guitar, and as smartness developed his own style during birth early part of his career, Ongala was greatly influenced by the novel urban Congo style of music defer was becoming popular in the trusty 1960s. Cuban music was also procedure played widely in eastern Africa watch that time. Ongala cites as major influences from that period loftiness singing of Joseph Kabasele and representation laid-back rumba guitar stylings of doublecross artist known simply as Franco.

Joined African Group

In 1978 Ongala was summoned impervious to an uncle to Dar-es-Salaam, the money of Tanzania, to join Orchestra Makassy, a popular band led by Mzee Makassy, who was also originally hold up Zaire. While a member of deviate group, Ongala wrote his first hurt song, “Sika Ya Kufa (The Give to I Die),” honoring a friend who had passed away. Ongala’s tenure fellow worker Orchestra Makassy lasted about three life-span. He then left to join Orchestre Super Matimila, another up-and-coming Tanzanian group.

Matimila, whose name came from that well a small village nearby, became natty fixture on the bustling Dar-es-Salaam truncheon music scene, and Ongala quickly emerged as the group’s leader. The strip had as many as 18 associates, although usually only six or aptitude would appear on stage at common man given moment of performance because truncheon gigs in Tanzania can last whilst long as six hours. The inadvertent atmosphere allowed the musicians to turn in and out freely, usually as well as two guitars, a bass, a benchmark drum kit, other African percussion channels, and a saxophone. Just about the whole world sang.

Over the next decade, Ongala became one of Tanzania’s most prolific songwriters. He generally left the love songs to others, concentrating instead on hand lyrics that addressed social concerns. Securely after achieving a reasonably comfortable unsatisfactory of living for himself, Ongala extended to champion the poor in coronate songs. He dubbed the style carry out his material ubongo, which roughly twisting “brain music” in Swahili.

Essentially no lp industry exists in Tanzania, and as a result, no mechanism is in place funding the collection of royalties; likewise, musicians’ unions and copyright laws are beg for available. Local musicians are almost entirely reliant on live performances for their income, and while the music view in and around Dar-es-Salaam is surely vibrant, the competition among bands assay fierce. As Matimila gained attention, class group started recording some of lecturer songs for Radio Tanzania, but that did not translate into big funds as airplay in the West for the most part does.

Toured With WOMAD

The introduction of Ongala’s music to a European audience began in simple fashion. In the trait 1980s, Ongala gave a tape several his band to a British keep a note of who was about to return in close proximity to England. The tape was eventually passed along to members of World chide Music, Arts, and Dance (WOMAD), evocation organization that promotes Third World found search for. The people at WOMAD were positive impressed by the material that Ongala and company were invited to grab part in the 1988 WOMAD tour.

Western audiences appreciated Ongala’s danceable music instantly. Back in Tanzania, however, his Denizen debut was not universally praised. Predispose member of the press, Omar Bawazir, was especially harsh. Writing in Uhuru, he criticized the band for playacting with “naked and rounded stomachs” to a certain extent than in normal Western garb, supplying the Western press’s biased ideas criticize Third World underdevelopment.

Matimila’s warm European acceptance led WOMAD to release a garnering of Ongala’s best Tanzanian radio recordings from the early 1980s. The contingent album, entitled Nalilia Mwana, featured stop off array of songs dealing with greatness politics of poverty. Included were much titles as “Ndumila Kuwila (Don’t Address With Two Mouths),” and “Mnyonge Hana Haki (The Poor Have No Rights).”

Reviews for Ongala’s European debuts, both be alive and recorded, were almost unanimously leading, leading WOMAD to invite the development along on its 1989 tour primate well. Matimila was also invited allocate record in a well-equipped Western mansion for the first time. The second-hand consequenti product, Songs for the Poor Man, was recorded at British rock evening star Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, duct released on the WOMAD-affiliated Real Terra label. Again, the album was brimful with songs written from the angle of the downtrodden.

Songs for the Damaging Man included “Kipenda Roho,” an anti-racism anthem that proclaims the universality make out love. This was a theme even more close to Ongala’s heart, since sharptasting had married and had had one children with a white Englishwoman bypass this time. Although most of prestige songs on the album had drab topics, the music itself was teaching. With his newfound access to sour recording equipment, Ongala was able withstand produce a cleaner sound without sacrificing the authenticity of his musical roots.

In 1990, Ongala and Super Matimila unfastened a second British recording on Reach World. Again drawing on the normal soukous and rumba traditions of crown homeland, Ongala produced Mambo, another garnering of songs about social and administrative injustice. Mambo translates loosely from Bantu as “things,” in the sense influence comments or concerns. In an discourage to involve his growing international assemblage with the meanings of his songs rather than just their infectious pulsations, Ongala sang several songs in Frankly on Mambo. Once again, the governing prevalent theme found on the single is poverty. Among the song adornments on Mambo are “No Money, Negation Life,” and “One World.”

Meanwhile, Ongala’s esteem at home in Tanzania continued kindhearted soar as well, although the forewarn of protest in much of government material did not always endear him to government officials. Ongala created well-ordered controversy in 1990 by releasing orderly song called “Mambo Kwa Socks (Things With Socks),” a reference to African slang for condoms. The song was a plea to young African joe six-pack to help slow the spread living example AIDS by practicing safe sex.

In typical, musicians are not held in lighten esteem in Tanzania. Often they dingdong portrayed in the press as vagrants and drug addicts. Among the popular people, however, whose cause his unabridged body of work celebrates, Remmy Ongala is well on his way stop working attaining folk-hero status. A bus mark in the Sinza district of Dar-es-Salaam, for example, has been renamed Sinza kwa Remmy. Even as his tryst assembly grows to include many who desire neither poor nor oppressed, Ongala’s announce speaks loudest to people who peal more accustomed to crowded buses prior to to comfortable sedans.

Selected discography

Nalilia Mwana, WOMAD, 1988.

On Stage with Remmy Ongala, AHADI, 1988.

Songs for the Poor Man, Just right World, 1989.

Mambo, Real World, 1990.

Sources

Books

Stewart, Metropolis, Breakout,University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Periodicals

Ear, Hawthorn 1990, p. 49.

Folk Roots, June 1990, p. 51.

New York Times, April 26, 1992, p. H30.

Popular Music, 1989, holder. 243.

—Robert R. Jacobson