Various Artists - Roots of Rumba Rock: Congo Classics 1953-1955 - 2 x CDs
SKU
17-CRAMMED33
Fantastic compilation featuring both volumes together in one package (I bought them seperately as imports, damn it!) of great proto-African pop. Recommended for fans of the sound! "The best of early Congolese Pop Music: two compilations featuring hits from the years 1953 to 1955, which chronicle the birth of what was to become Africa's most popular musical style. The origins of Congolese Rumba, its strange links with traditional music, with Afro-Cuban piano styles, with French crooners and Belgian brass-bands; the social context, the lifestyle of Congolese musicians in the early Fifties, all of that and much more is extensively described in the liner notes, based on interviews with some of the stars of that era"