Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
SOUNDS
Achille Mbembe
2005/4 - N° 100
pages 69 à 91
ISSN 0244-7827
La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des
conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre
établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que
ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en
France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.
Politique africaine
69
Notes de fond
Variations on the Beautiful in the Congolese World of Sounds
Achille Mbembe
Frime, escroquerie et cosmopolitisme. Le succès
du « coupé-décalé » en Afrique et ailleurs
Dominik Kohlhagen
Corps, ville, violence. « Why blackman dey carry shit »
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
Achille Mbembe
Theodore Adorno, known for his aversion to Jazz, would no doubt have
disliked Congolese music 1. In all likelihood, he simply would not have
considered it to be “music”. Instead, one suspects, he would have thought
of it as deafening, painful noise: the discordant emission of primitive energy.
Should he have deigned to identify it as music at all, he likely would have
classified it as “low art”.
Low art, for Adorno, encompassed the vulgar in both form and content:
crude simplicity, stupefying effects, a propensity for encouraging social
passivity and intoxication. With this definition in mind, in Congolese music
the philosopher would almost certainly have decried coarse stimuli, banal
1. T. Adorno, Introduction à la sociologie de la musique, Paris, Contrechamps, 1994, p. 38. See also
T. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, New York, Routledge and Paul Kegan, 1982.
72 Cosmopolis : de la ville, de l’Afrique et du monde
emerged as a declaration of the most radical and the most immediate faith in
a life which is necessarily contradictory and paradoxical.
If this is so, the question then is to establish what actually happens in this
music. What makes it arouse, in the African subject hearing it, listening to it
or dancing to it, a force so unique and so intimate that the subject experiences
a feeling of complete jubilation? What is the relationship between this intimate
force and the idea of the beautiful? How can we understand its power, its
penetrating strength and energizing force, and hence its aesthetic signification?
What experience of joy and of life does it document and, in so doing, how does
it bring about a fusion of sound, happiness and sensation?
In responding to these questions, my starting-point is that there is neither
beauty nor ugliness other than in relation to a form of life of which the beautiful
(or the ugly) is a manifestation, a celebration, or even a contradiction. From a
purely musical perspective, the beautiful is that which, judged so by the ear,
touches and moves, provokes pleasure or sensory joy. But the ear is not all. This
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
here 6, it is essential to remember that the latter mobilise several senses and
organs (hearing, voice, sight, touch, and further, movement and waves of
energy). There is nothing more complex than verbalizing that which involves
the non-verbal, or describing sound, which in essence is neither linguistic nor
involves the purely spontaneous practice of language. Aesthetic interpretation
here supposes that sensory material is reorganized by what might be called
the sound event, in the very process through which the latter frees the
imagination. It is such an exercise that I attempt here.
Background
6. The principal works studied here are: Koffi Olomide, Effrakata (Next music/Sono, CDS 8919MD862,
2001); Papa Wemba, Molokai (Real World, LC3098, 1998); Werra Son, Kibuisa Mpimpa: Operation
Dragon (CDJPS, 2001); JB Mpiana, TH Toujours humble (Sacem, n. d.); Extra-Musica, Bon Pied Bon
Look: Champion d’Afrique (Declic Communication, 1997); Wenge Musica Maison Mère, Solola Bien!
(CD JPS, 1999); Wenge BCBG, JB Mpiana Souverain (Simon Music-Sipe, n. d.); Koffi Olomide,
Attentat (Sonodisc, 1999), Tshala Muana, Malu (CDJPS, 2002); Zaiko Langa Langa, Eureka! (CD JPS
217, 2003); Werrason, À la queue leu-leu (CDJPS 234, 2003); Koffi Olomide, Affaire d’État (Next
Music/Sono, CDS 8979, 2003); Papa Wemba, Mzée Fulangenge (Sono, CDS 8836-SD30, s. d.).
7. See, for example, Kazadi wa Mukuna, “The origin of Zairean modern music: a socio-economic
aspect”, African Urban Studies, n° 5, 1979-1980, p. 31-39, and “The genesis of urban music in Zaire”,
African Music, vol. 7, n° 2, 1992, p. 72-84.
8. P. Ngandu Nkashama (dir.), L’Église des prophètes africains. Lettres de Bakatuasa Lubwe Wa Mvidi
Mukulu, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1991.
9. N. Hunt, Colonial Lexicon, Durham, Duke University Press, 1998.
10. See L. White, Speaking with Vampires, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000.
76 Cosmopolis : de la ville, de l’Afrique et du monde
Disciplining the body was accomplished through labour on the one hand,
and intensive techniques of caring for the self on the other. One such technique
was the deployment of elegance and self-stylization 11. The body, humiliated
and made ugly in the workplace or at the hands of a brutal colonial regime,
could acquire a new value and be rehabilitated through various arts of making
it beautiful, through masquerade, simulation, imitation and dissimulation.
In this context, appearances emerged as powerful tools and signifiers of
action. In urban centres, the body was introduced to the rudiments of colonial
bourgeois civility 12. In this context, a new culture of taste and leisure emerged 13:
a global culture with its own spaces. Bars (nganda) were a case in point. This
global culture produced its own activities, linked, among others, to the sex trade
(mwasi ya leta), to sports (football clubs) and the consumption of alcohol 14.
In these various settings, cultural artefacts local and foreign rubbed shoulders,
juxtaposing places near and far.
From its inception in this context, Congolese popular music was less
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
music scene in Congo. The Rumba proved a particularly rich source of inspi-
ration, spawning a wealth of stylistic variants, starting with the Rumba Boucher,
the Rumba Odemba and Rumba-Sukuma at the beginning of World War II,
through to the Rumba Kiri-Kiri and the Rumba-Sukusu of the 1980s. These
developments, in turn, were nurtured by the availability of rich and compatible
rhythmic formulas, dances steps and body movements (Agbwaya, Nzambele,
Ebongo), as well as a plethora of stringed instruments (njenje, kokolo, likembe)
and drums (patenge) from various regions of Congo 15.
The two principal Congolese bands of these early days, both founded by
Joseph Kabasele, African Jazz and OK Jazz, later headed by Luambo Makiadi
(best known as Franco), are positioned at the very confluence of these external
and internal influences 16. Both played a central role in the emergence of
modern urban Congolese music as a form of entertainment intimately linked
to key social occasions, ritual and drama. The birth of African Jazz in 1953 was
a milestone. Kabasele’s orchestra brought discipline to the emerging local
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
11. C. D. Gondola, “Dream and drama: the search for elegance among Congolese youth,” African Studies
Review, vol. 42, n° 1, 1999, p. 23-48.
12. See V. Y. Mudimbe, The Idea of Africa, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1994, chap. 4.
13. P. Martin, Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1995.
14. E. Dorier-Apprill (dir.), Vivre à Brazzaville. Modernité et crise au quotidien, Paris, Karthala, 1998.
15. Kazadi wa Mukuna, 1980. The author cites such dances as the Mokonyonyon (of the Tetela ethnic
group) introduced in 1977 by the singer Papa Wemba, or Lita Bembo’s Ekonda Saccadé (originating
among the Mongo people), Empire Bakuba’s Kwasa-Kwasa (of the Kongo ethnic group) or T.P.O.K.
Jazz’s Mayeno (Bantandu people).
16. See S. Bemba, Cinquante Ans de musique du Congo-Zaïre, Paris, Présence africaine, 1984;
C. D. Gondola, “Musique moderne et identités citadines. Le cas du Congo-Zaïre”, Afrique contemporaine,
n° 168, 1983, December 1993, p. 125-168.
78 Cosmopolis : de la ville, de l’Afrique et du monde
of a single note from a dominant guitar. Important as well for the later devel-
opment of Congolese music were dissonant twinges he introduced in the first
half of a piece, followed in the second by chromatically tinged episodes of
rhythmic irregularity. Lyricism here became imbued with a brittle undercurrent,
a half-heartedness still heard in most contemporary Congolese productions.
Franco also brought into modern band music the high-register alto and falsetto
male voices that were common in traditional music and used the vibrato to
create an ornate electric guitar sound. Simultaneously, he introduced the
method of playing runs of “sixths” that has become yet another trademark
of the Congolese guitar style. This he combined with a grinding, metallic
sound which reproduced the resonance of a traditional zither. Finally, he
unleashed the sebene, a master stroke consisting in taking up a musical phrase
and repeating it until it becomes hypnotic 17.
By the mid 1970s, music had become a key means by which Congolese
urban society reflected on itself, on its own identity, and on the modes of
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
17. See G. Ewens, Congo Colossus: The Life and Legacy of Franco & OK Jazz, Norwich, Buku Press, 1994,
p. 94 ff.
18. See Kazadi wa Mukuna, “The hanging role of the guitar in the urban music of Zaïre”, The World
of Music, vol. 36, n° 2, 1994, p. 62-72.
19. Ibid., p. 68.
20. R. Devisch, “Frenzy, violence, and ethical renewal in Kinshasa”, Public Culture, vol. 7, n° 3, 1995,
p. 593-630, and “La violence à Kinshasa, ou l’institution en négatif”, Cahiers d’études africaines,
vol. 38, n° 150-152, 1998, p. 441-469.
21. P. Ngandu Nkashama, “Ivresse et vertige: les nouvelles danses des jeunes au Zaïre”, L’Afrique
littéraire et artistique, n° 51, n. d., p. 94-102.
80 Cosmopolis : de la ville, de l’Afrique et du monde
munication), and the hegemony of images. From this, extremely complex rela-
tionships arise. Words commonly reference a plurality of concepts. The things
they designate are multiple and their significations structurally ambivalent. The
same is true of images, be they drawn from TV series, videos or the work of
self-taught urban painters: intrinsically composite, they demonstrate an extraor-
dinary capacity not only to represent, but also to tell a story and, simultane-
ously, to make it happen 22.
Music renders visible the multiple juxtapositions that shape daily life. In the
process, it becomes an “archive”, a “relic”, of human experience on the streets
of Congo’s cities. Plays on length and pitch in Lingala, Kinshasa’s lingua
franca and the language in which most music is sung, foster an intimate rela-
tion between tone and word. In Zaiko Langa Langa’s “Eureka”, for example,
every sound espouses the tones, accents, sighs, and inflexions of the worded
voice, telling and making a story. Word play, a staple of most songs, adds to
the telling of the tale, as do words invented and adapted from different lan-
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
22. See B. Jewsiewicki, “Vers une impossible représentation de soi”, Les Temps modernes, n° 620-621,
2002, p. 101-105.
23. Ibid.
24. On the notion of abjection, see J. Kristeva, Pouvoir de l’horreur: essai sur l’abjection, Paris, Le Seuil, 1980.
25. See the special volume edited by J.-L. Grootaers, Mort et maladie au Zaïre, Cahiers africains, vol. 8,
n° 31-32, 1998.
26. See L. Joris, La Danse du léopard, Paris, Actes Sud, 2002.
27. See F. De Boeck, “Le ‘deuxième monde’ et les ‘enfants-sorciers’ en République démocratique du
Congo,” Politique africaine, n° 80, december 2000, p. 32-57.
28. Compare with the limited range of sounds that characterizes the convention of Western art music.
It can be argued that until the development of electronic sound generators, this range remained
confined within a relatively small compass. See S. Shaw-Miller, Visible Deeds of Music: Art and Music
from Wagner to Cage, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2002, p. 218.
29. On the theme of the “scream” in contemporary African thought, see J.-M. Ela, Le Cri de l’homme
africain, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1980.
30. I have been inspired, here, by G. Deleuze, Francis Bacon…, op. cit., p. 28-61.
31. On the subject of cruelty, see A. Artaud, Le Théâtre et son double, Paris, Gallimard, 1964.
32. In another context, see T. Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America,
London, Wesleyan University Press, 1994; J. Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Minneapolis,
University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
82 Cosmopolis : de la ville, de l’Afrique et du monde
too are noisome. “There is always the scent of food emanating from cooking-
pots or from a nganda, the smell of a car’s exhaust pipe or a sewage pipe, or
the smell of urine against a wall or a tree bearing a ‘Do not urinate’ sign 33.”
Congolese musical works dip abundantly into this culture of noise. Any and
all sounds are used, if not as a musical sound, then at least to create music. Often,
musical sounds are based on imitations of natural sounds. Onomatopeas
abound. Noise is used to modify sound understood as pure form. This does
not make music heard or composed any less instrumentally rich – quite the
contrary, as evidenced by the virtuosity of guitar riffs and the improvisational
flourishes they and other instruments bring forth. Noise adds to rhythm
spasmodic eruptions that break the stream of slow melodies. Purity of form
or sound is not the goal: the effect sought is one of corruption through noise.
Yet this noise is not anarchic, not least because it expresses joy. Noise, here, is
part of the practice of joy. Joy is noisy within this musical genre. And noise,
an “impure” sound, is used in the service of joy and beauty.
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
Dimensions of Form
Rhythm
The rhythm of Congolese music draws on that of poetry, of religious song
and prayer and of autochthonous dance. It is produced not only by musical
instruments, but by gesture and voice as well. Rhythm imprints itself on the
dancer’s body, infusing it with pulsating waves of energy. Polyrhythm is the
dominant model: bursts and sequences that are at times regular and others
intermittent. Variations between increasing and decreasing energy, and
movement upwards to a peak and then back down again, are characteristic of
most musical pieces. The energetic tension is enhanced by repetition of a same
musical phrase, over and over, by the solo or bass guitar, or by ramping up
pressure through a series of screams. Sounds, syllables and phrases, all the
while, are manipulated with increasing momentum.
Politique africaine
83 Variations on the Beautiful in the Congolese World of Sounds
Dance
Performance is integral to the experience thus unleashed. Consider the
steps women dance to the rhythm known as Soukous 36. There are several
such steps, each with a different name 37. The aesthetic of the names is in itself
revealing. Tourniquet, for instance. The word references a set of movements
around a circle with clearly defined contours. The circle is the dancer’s body:
all movement is centred on the body itself, or, more precisely, in certain parts
of the body. The dancer lightly flexes her knees, fixes her buttocks, arches her
back and begins to turn her hips. She becomes the curves of her body, sensual,
provocative. The hips act as a chassis for the whole body, yet, like the buttocks,
remain flexible. The other parts of her frame follow, moving from this central
pivot. To dance the tourniquet then basically means to rotate the pelvis. But this
would cast the body as a prison for the soul, dancing here is a celebration of
the flesh. The body is absolute flux and music is invested with the power to
enter it, penetrating it to the core. Music produces psychic, somatic and emo-
tional effects on the organs and limbs, subjecting them to the rule of waste.
Music “breaks bones” (buka mikuwa) and “hurls bodies” (bwakanka nzoto),
causing women and men to “behave like snakes” (na zali ko bina lokolo nioka).
The body is not so much “harmed” as it becomes a site of transgression, the
locus of a blurring – between the transcendental and the empirical, the material
and the psychic. In addition to existing as flux, the body is also a force-field
of contrasts. Music engages in a struggle with these forces. Never simply
movement of the human form, Congolese dance embodies something that
resembles a search for original life, for perpetual genesis, and, through this,
for an ideal of happiness and serenity.
Paradoxically, a state of serenity is attained through noise, screams and
trance. This is the case in Ndombolo, wherein sounds, at times, are simplified to
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
38. See G. Rouget, La Musique et la transe. Essai d’une théorie générale des relations de la musique et de la
possession, Paris, Gallimard, 1990.
86 Cosmopolis : de la ville, de l’Afrique et du monde
in Congolese urban dance, the opposition between body and mind becomes
blurred. Dance emerges as the site of a “dual life”, wherein all truth, all beauty
has multiple meanings. In a sociological context where misery, anguish, trauma,
terror and horror are not only daily realities, but also constitute the state of the
subject, dancing becomes a way of journeying outside the self.
brisk and lively chorus, and constructs the phraseology of the screams around
a theme parallel to the main text of the work, riding on the back of the dancer’s
skill in a mysterious journey between gesture and being.
“Baby, do you see how this girl rolls her hips? I can hardly contain myself, look, but look, look…”
“My brother, we have to collect the crumbs they have left us. Let’s go, come, if you refuse,
what shall we eat?”
“Can you feel it, this emotion? Let us destroy the elixir, right now”.
“My young brother, I cry every day, because where are we going to live? In Europe they
want no more of us, and here at home, there is nothing but trouble”.
“Comrade in exile, why do you stab me in the back? Should we distrust our childhood
friends?”
“Long live the weed!”
“Let’s let go, my brother, let go for real!”
“Shamukwale: My brother is returning the money you have stolen. There is no point in killing
me, there is no point in hurting me”.
“My mother is the mistress of my father’s best friend. My mother’s best friend is now
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
That the technique of screams was introduced in the 1980s is not coincidental.
The 1980s in Congo were a time of multiple crises. Music, in this context, was
transformed into an instrument of social revolt. Revolt, however, always went
hand in hand with uneasy compromise. A number of musicians thus found
themselves singing the praises of “Saddam Hussein”, the nickname given to
Mobutu Sesse Seko’s son, who was the patron of various bands in Kinshasa.
But the music nevertheless remained an expression of hate. Instruments
– drums, beating faster, synthesisers, bass guitars – took to mimicking the
winds of destruction howling through the country. Sounds of suffering and
social fragmentation echoed through the music. The spectacle of bloodshed
and dismemberment that was Congo became the spectacle of the song. Such
is the source of the screams, cries, moans and groans – all forms of utterance
that resist language – which litter Congolese music at the close of 20th century.
And so the scream, like melody, rhythm and percussion, becomes a bridge
between pain and its expression as language 39.
39. See E. Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1987.
88 Cosmopolis : de la ville, de l’Afrique et du monde
guitars and voices. The musicians are dressed in black and white uniforms.
Werrason, wearing a leather shirt and trousers, appears in the middle of a
song. The solo guitar is unobtrusive, leaving space for the lead musician’s
voice, which in turn alternates with the voices of a chorus. The song proceeds
as if in a Christian litany. The names of artists, both dead and alive, are called
out, accompanied by faint gestures, in deep communion with a tradition
hailing back to Franco. The drums are almost inaudible. Now and then, the
guitar seeks to take the lead, but half-heartedly, and is immediately drowned
out by the singing.
Suddenly a group of women appear dressed like soldiers. They sport
striking hairdos; some are redheads, others blondes. They are wearing a variety
of shoe styles, from boots to Nike trainers. The choreography is formal,
controlled by the screams of an atalaku draped in a blue Congolese flag covered
with stars. Now and then, the breaks initiated by the lead guitar and the
atalaku introduce a spasmodic and jerky rhythm, which provokes a frenzy of
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
the rump is thrust violently backwards, then projected forward and back
again.
They feel for their testicles, black bodies swamped in sweat, gleaming
under the effect of the lights and the vivid colours. They pretend to tickle,
then to caress themselves, then halt and let out a deep sigh. The buttocks are
held in a position enhanced by the dancer’s plump flesh. They pretend to
introduce the penis into an imaginary vagina and then withdraw. They perform
somersaults. They place their feet in imaginary stirrups and mount, before
setting off at a fast trot. They wring their hands in joy. Then, as in a saddle, they
sit bolt upright, closing the legs and enjoying an intense, sensual friction.
They twist and turn like satisfied grass snakes, letting out cries as they thrust
and jerk, moving their loins in a simulation of masturbation, the backside
clearly visible, prepared for the climax of release.
Everything, or almost everything, in this performance seeks to be seen.
Here, the music is above all a language: the language of conscious and
Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - - - 196.214.85.222 - 26/08/2014 13h01. © Editions Karthala
40. C. Accaoui writes: “Music is above all an art of time: It shapes time and time shapes music.” See
C. Accaoui, Le Temps musical, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 2001, p. 8.
90 Cosmopolis : de la ville, de l’Afrique et du monde
41. F. Nietzsche, La Philosophie à l’époque tragique des Grecs, Paris, Gallimard, 1989, p. 181-184.
42. F. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, full cite in English.