Mingiedi Mawangu, the founder of the Congolese outfit Konono N°1, unfortunately passed away last year, but in his stead, his son Augustin is ensuring that future productions don’t depart from a previously unmatched ability to make humans do the Running Man in their office chairs, even though office chairs clearly weren’t meant to withstand relentless butt-shaking. At some point in the recent past, Augustin and his bandmates/likembe operators joined Angolan-born, Portugal-raised producer Batida a.k.a. Pedro Coquenão in his Lisbon studio, and what resulted was Konono N°1 Meets Batida, the former’s first album in six years following 2010’s Assume Crash Position. We may be facing the imminent arrival of groovy heterogeneity.
Case-in-point: those are definitely Portuguese lyrics toward the latter part of the track below, and in addition to Batida’s cultural contributions, he co-produced the new album alongside Vincent Kenis, who played an integral role in the development of Konono N°1’s attention-getting debut, Congotronics in 2005. Additional humans in the studio included guitarist Papa Juju, vocalist Selma Uamusse, and artist/slam poet MC AF Diaphra.
Kenis’s Crammed Discs is doing the label honors. Set your mental sights to April for what’s a likely addition to your “Reasons I Accidentally Danced into Traffic 2016” list. Your “Favorite Albums of 2016” list, too, dare I predict…
Konono N°1 Meets Batida tracklisting:
01. Nlele Kalusimbiko
02. Yambadi Mama
03. Tokolanda
04. Bom Dia
05. Kinsumba
06. Nzonzing Família
07. Kuna America
More about: Batida, Konono N°1, Pedro Coquenão
