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Congo

A 78 from 1933 Congo

Maboudana & Badolo

Almost nothing is known about Maboudana and Badolo except a single 78 rpm record, dated 1933 and credited to Middle Congo, the French colony on the Brazzaville side of the Congo River. There are no biographies and no other recordings. The disc survived in the collection of American cartoonist Robert Crumb, a devoted collector of pre-war 78s, and reached modern listeners in 2003 on Hot Women: Women Singers from the Torrid Regions of the World, a compilation drawn from his records and released by the Swiss label Kein & Aber.

Congo's master guitarist, 1939–85

Docteur Nico

Nicolas Kasanda wa Mikalay was fourteen when he joined Joseph Kabasele's African Jazz in 1953. The fingerpicked, arpeggiated guitar style he worked out there earned him the nickname Docteur Nico and became a foundation of Congolese rumba and, later, soukous. In 1963 he co-founded African Fiesta with singer Tabu Ley Rochereau, and his reputation traveled far enough that Jimi Hendrix is said to have sought him out in Paris. He drifted away from music in the mid-1970s after his Belgian label went bankrupt, made a few last recordings in Togo, and died in Brussels in 1985, at forty-six.

The Collection