Zando Ya Makambo

This is the latest in a series of releases from London studio Pro Smart under the direction of Congolese musician and arranger Jeannot Bel. The songwriter is Richard Kasongo and this is the follow-up to his 2016 album Bongola. The principle performer, however, is Jeannot Bel himself who sings and plays some excellent lead guitar along with Willy Moke and bass guitarist Chocolat Bradley. It is a pleasant album of modern style rumba.

Kasongo’s lyrics of homespun philosophies are sung in Lingala. Bel has a smoky voice ideally suited to the gentle rumba. The vocals suffer slightly from studio trickery, either pitch correction or Vocoder, which makes the voice sound compressed and a little artificial. The songs are mostly quite short and would benefit from being a bit longer, allowing the players enough time to flex their more than capable musical muscle. One of the seemingly lost joys of Congolese music is the extended sebene – the lengthy and thrilling guitar interplay. Otherwise, this is an enjoyable example of the less frantic style of Congolese music – sweet and melodic.