Obituary: Papa Noel (1940-2024)

From his time playing with Le Grand Kallé and Franco to Kékélé, the band he helped to found several decades later at the turn of the millennium, Papa Noel’s career as a guitarist spanned almost the entire history of modern Congolese music.

Born Antoine Nedule Monswet in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) on December 25, 1940 and entirely self-taught, he made his first studio recording when he was 17 on ‘Clara Badimwene’ by the veteran bandleader Leon Bukasa, who along with Franco and Joseph Kabasele was one of the progenitors of Congolese rumba. Legend says that Bukasa named him Papa Noel after learning he had been born on Christmas Day, though other reports have said that Noel simply reversed the name of his mentor, Leon.

Shortly after, he joined the band Rock-a-Mambo, formed by clarinettist Jean Serge Essous and sax player Nino Malapet, both former members of Franco’s OK Jazz. When independence arrived across the Belgian and French colonies in 1960, the band moved across the Congo River to Brazzaville and morphed into Orchestre Bantou aka Les Bantous de la Capitale, with whom he established his reputation as a composer and as a virtuosic instrumentalist in what came to be known as the ‘third school’ of Congolese guitar playing after Franco and Dr Nico. 

By 1963, he had joined Orchestre African Jazz led by the mighty Joseph Kabasele, aka Le Grand Kallé, the only musician with a claim to rival Franco as the godfather of Congolese popular music. Papa Noel’s stay was short-lived, for the band was already in decline, and he went on to join Paul ‘Dewayon’ Ebengo in Cobantou before forming his own band, Orchestre Bamboula, in 1968.

Recruiting several fine backing musicians, including Bopol Mansiamina and Wuta Mayi, who would go on to form Les Quatres Étoiles, he enjoyed dance hits with ‘Succès Mambeta’ and ‘Confiance Perdue’, although a fallow period followed before he joined OK Jazz in 1978.

He remained until Franco died in 1989 but excited the wrath of the great man when in 1984, moonlighting under the name Papa Noel Nono, he recorded a solo album and had a huge hit with ‘Bon Samaritain’, which purportedly outsold OK Jazz’s releases and remains his best-known and most popular composition.

After Franco’s death, he recorded the 1993 album Bakitani with other veterans from OK Jazz under the name Bana OK and released his second solo album, Haute Tension, in 1994. In celebration of his 60th birthday, tracks from his two solo albums were compiled on the 2000 release Bel Ami, which, for those unfamiliar with his work, remains the best place to start. He also played on Sam Mangwana’s 1998 album Galo Negro and explored the roots of rumba with Cuban tres player Papi Oviedo on 2002’s brilliant Bana Congo.

By then, he had also formed Kékélé with other Congolese veterans and took the lead on the band’s 2001 debut, Rumba Congo. Tuberculosis prevented his continuing with the band, but after he had recovered, he resumed recording, including 2013’s Color, an intriguing collaboration with French accordionist Viviane Arnoux, which received a four-star review in Songlines #99.