London - June 2001 - Last month I ventured into London's famous 100 Club to hear the music of legendary Congolese musician Sam Mangwana. I had heard of Mangwana but had never heard his music. And so I was excited about seeing the show. When I got there I was thinking of the 100 Club's history, particularly being a place which hosted bands such as the Sex Pistols. Nowadays you see the 100 Club featuring a lot of swing and other types of Jazz groups, but this night it was the home of a particular brand of Congolese music.

The show was fantastic. A prolific songwriter and potent performer, Mangwana and his band transfixed the crowd with lilting Congolese vocals and against a rich tapestry of Cuban and Congolese music. Mangwana is Angolan, born in Kinshasa, Congo in 1945.

Sam Mangwana is a well-known champion of Congolese rhumba, the music he helped to create. Mangwana fuses Portuguese-African melodies and rhythms of Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau, the rhythms of his native Congo, Latin rumba, Antillean K'-dance, Spanish-Cuban decima, with hints of Portuguese and Vallenato (Venezuela and Colombia) accordion. And as always, the sensuous syncopated guitar son of Oriente, Cuba (literally the country blues of Cuba) has had a deep effect on the music of Africa.(1)

If you have the opportunity to see Mangwana and his band, please do yourself a favour and go to experience the magic first hand.

Click here for a more complete biography of Sam Mangwana.

by Marva Jackson Lord

photos by Marva Jackson Lord

(1. excerpted from review by Al Angelero)