The Best of Vis-A-Vis in Congo Style

Earlier this year Songlines reviewed the reissue of Obi Agye Me Dofo, a rare 1977 album from the golden age of Ghanaian highlife by Vis-A-Vis, a band hailing from the ancient Ashanti capital of Kumasi. We noted at the time that the group had released no fewer than 13 albums between 1975 and 1982 and rather hoped that more reissues were on the way. Six months later comes this splendid set.

Led by vocalist Isaac ‘Superstar’ Yeboah and featuring Sammy Cropper on guitar, Slim Manu on bass and Gybson ‘Shaolin Kung-Fu’ Papra on drums, it’s probably an even better album than Obi Agye Me Dofo, on which their joyous highlife style was fused with a Western synth-funk sound. Here the band look instead to blend their Ghanaian rhythms with Congolese rumba and, although the toy organ sound is at times grating, the spiralling guitars, urgent dance rhythms and harmony vocals are irresistible. The album’s up-tempo rumba style is captured at its best on ‘Cherie Bondowe’, a song which had been a hit the previous year for the Congolese star Freddy Mayaula Mayoni and OK Jazz, but the other five tracks are not far behind.