"Lubumbashi Wantanshi!" "Lubumbashi, first city!" proclaim the giant arches framing the entrances to Lubumbashi. However, the slogan adopted by the former Elisabethville has taken some serious knocks over the past twenty years. The history of Lubumbashi has been closely tied up with that of the Democratic Republic of Congo as a whole, its destiny intricately interwoven with the Republic's past grandeur, its decadence - and its uncertain present. But Lubumbashi has always suffered from a cruel paradox; despite its economic importance, its musicians have always played second fiddle in their own country. Because in the former Zaire, the rumba has always been omnipresent, to the point that all the other types of music have struggled in its shadow. And yet if Lubumbashi no longer produces copper, it is nonetheless a mine of musical talent that no one seems to be exploiting.

THE JECOKE

While Kabasele, Franco, Tabu Ley and other stars were recording their hits in Kinshasa, JECOKE (the "jeunes comiques de la Kenya") were already singing their ballads in Swahili. The style was born in the late 1040s and its principal exponents were Edouard Masengo Katiti and Jean Bosco Mwenda wa Bayeke. Accompanied by a guitar and one or several dancers who mimed – often in comic fashion – the song's lyrics, the Jecoke acts told the story of the life, joys, and sorrows of the workers. Despite their success in the Katanga region, the Jecoke musicians eventually went their own way and Jecoke's founder moved to Kenya, where singers sing in Swahili as well. It was in Kenya in 1962 that Edouard Masengo Katiti taught the song Malaïka to the South African diva Myriam Makeba, in exile at the time in Nairobi. Her version became popular across the world. Edouard Masengo Katiti died in 2003, leaving an indelible mark on Katanga music, and even today there are still singers in the region who derive their style from Katiti. They stroll the streets of the city at night with their guitar, busking from bar to bar for the price of a few hundred Congolese francs.

Traditional "jazz"

The musical style known as kalindula is believed to have originated in neighbouring Zambia. It first began filtering across the border into Lubumbashi in the 1970s. The style derives its name from a local instrument, the kalindula, a Congolese "DIY" version of the banjo, cheap to make. It was rapidly adopted in the poorer neighbourhoods where groups of self-taught musicians began springing up on local street corners. Often comprising manual labourers, barrow boys, street vendors and their out-of-work neighbours, these local groups generally performed at local funeral ceremonies where their mission was to entertain assembled mourners. Despite their provocative reputation, kalindula groups actually emerged as important social witnesses of their life and times, their songs holding a mirror up to the appalling social and economic conditions of the wantanshi townships. The lyrics of popular kalindula songs painted powerful tableaux of families fighting over scraps at dinner time, lamenting the fact that "the table has turned into a ring." The spirit of kalindula, a genre generally confined to local festivities and neighbourhood ceremonies, is very similar to zouglou (a musical style which chronicles modern urban life in Ivory Coast). Kalindula and zouglou are 'poor man's music', 'people's music' played out on instruments recycled from odds and ends, instruments which are at once traditional and urban, thus totally in line with the modern world.

This musical genre, generally confined to local festivities and neighbourhood ceremonies, is very similar in spirit to zouglou from Côte d'Ivoire, at least in terms of production and distribution. Le collège Nzembela is one of the few groups whose cassettes are on sale in the city. But since the beginning of the 1990s, it is not just the kalindula singers who sing about social issues. Hip hop is also very much a vector for social commentary, and has spread like wildfire across Africa.

Hip hop in Lubum’

Unlike kalindula, rap first developed in more privileged milieus. The students of the university of Lubumbashi, well known for their militancy, picked up on rap as their favourite means of musical expression. Their lyrics are often more biting, cold and to the point than their fellow students in Kinshasa. The culture of good times, sharp clothes and glitter seems to have only a limited influence on the youth of Lubumbashi, who denounce all the evils that have befallen a country whose future seems more than uncertain. In short, it's the blues of the angry sons of the copper eaters! "No more glam and glitter / There's serious stuff we have to talk about / social injustice, genocides for profit…" Kamikaz sings his bitterness in the face of ruin and the systematic pillaging of the economy that has turned this "first city" into a shadow of itself. In these conditions, "what can we do if the academics go along with all the inequalities, all the stupidities, watching the "politicians" sharing out all our land as if they were dealing a deck of cards," asks one student in Les impolitiques. Other names on this emerging scene are the Luboom Connexion, the toaster Livingstone, and MC Kalleh with his tshikuna jazz, a fusion of hip hop and traditional music. Other acts, although French-speaking, look towards the economic giant that is South Africa (Johannesburg, like Kinshasa, is a two-hour flight away). That is the case with Kaela and RJ Kanierra, whose music has kwaito influences. Like their musical forerunners, these young rappers see their careers blocked by the lack of production and distribution structures.

Because if in Kinshasa a viable career in music is mission impossible, in Lubumbashi it is a utopian dream! The city has no professional studio. Recordings are mixed in makeshift home studios, thanks to the amazing DIY know-how of those who run them. As for sales, all music is pirated, organised from neighbouring Tanzania. In other words, the situation is a pretty difficult one. Ultimately, the silver lining for the musicians is their overriding desire and will to continue creating. "Lubumbashi Wantanshi" – ultimately the city's slogan does mean something. Lubumbashi does indeed remain a "first city", judging from the resistance and obstinacy of its poets.