Samba Ngo, whose parents came from Congo Brazzaville, was born in the early 1950s in Dibulu, a tiny village in the former Belgian Congo, today the Democratic Republic of Congo. Young Samba grew up surrounded by music from an early age, listening to the sacred songs used in the healing sessions organised by his father, a nganga (a traditional medicine man working with plants and herbs).

Samba’s parents were deported from the Belgian Congo in 1964. They set up a new home in Brazzaville where the young adolescent Samba made the acquaintance of Titos Somba, Jacques Bakangaduo and Loussakoueno Dieudonné who offered him the position of guitarist in their band Les Echos Noirs. The group played an urban fusion sound they dubbed Mudgéku, mixing South African influences with Congolese rhythms.

Samba recorded four singles with Les Echos Noirs before leaving the group to set up Africarythme in 1970. Two years later, he quit Africarythme to form M’Bamina with whom he went on to make seven albums. M’Bamina, a group of Congolese and Beninese musicians (whose name means lightning in Bakongo) may be unknown by today’s mp3 generation, but they went down in music history as precursors of modern urban African sounds inspired by tradition.   

The release of Samba Ngo’s greatest hits, featuring the entirety of his compositions between 1975 and 2003, is not only a treat for the ears but also a powerful lesson in African history. With Midi Passé portraying a continent pillaged for its raw materials, Butchè pointing the finger at a long line of shady politicians and Rendez-vous making a passionate plea for cultural diversity, Samba Ngo is a true nganga, examining his country’s old wounds with lucidity and compassion - and, at the end of the day, exerting an extraordinary healing power through his music.