Homepage, unofficial

Alias:

Francois Luambo Makiadi

Member of:

TPOK Jazz

Language:

Lingala

Genre:

Soukous Rumba congolais

Instrument:

Guitar Male vocals

Articles:
Retroafric
Afropop
Introduction to Franco
Remembering Franco

On the Internet
Discography
Rumba congolais/music samples
Franco songs

Biography

Even though it was Joseph Kabasele, also known as "Le Grand Kalle", who was the founder of modern Congolese music, it is Franco who is the major father
figure in the country's - yes, almost the whole of Africa's - music. His energetic, sharp, and utterly delicious guitar playing set the standard for how it all should be done. This has not changed one iota until now - almost 11 years after his death. Even though he was really the third in rank of the legendary OK Jazz Orchestra,
he was the indisputable leader. There are many reasons for this. He had a boyish charm and a high level of "star quality". Throughout his career he had a fantastic gift from God for guitar playing. But first and foremost he sang about the things that mattered to ordinary people, with stories taken from everyday life on Kinshasa's streets, written in a language the people understood because it, too, was from the streets. At the same time, Franco sang about the big questions - about morality, about African identity, about AIDS ("Attention Na SIDA" from 1987 onward has become an African classic), and about the relationship between men and women in a manner surpassing that of western pop music. Franco played pop music in its purest form, full of life, humour, warmth and of course great dance rhythms. His Pan-African attitude and down to earth humanity gave him a wide audience across the continent. The British magazine, "Folk Roots", that had recently named Youssou N'Dour as "African Musician of the Century", blushingly acknowledged that only a European publication could find someone to put ahead of Franco in such a position.
When Franco died in 1989 Zaire (now Congo) went into national mourning for four days, while the radio pumped out some of the best dance music ever made.
We can say no more.
Sadly, Franco's disks have often been unavailable, despite being produced in huge numbers: 150 albums. However, some of his earlier work can be found in a collection "Roots of OK Jazz", and the classic "Azda", on the French Sonodisc label.
(And there are signs of a revival and new issues of old treasures.)

Arne Berg

Relevant artists:
Papa Noel
Sam Mangwana
Papa Wemba

FRANCO, JOSKY, MATALANZA  
Sonodisc/1994

Three guitarists, three singers. And these guys can really move. The guitars lay the rhythms over each other and create a very African and syncopated rhythm pattern on drums and percussion. The songs just roll and roll along. The disk opens with the almost 13 minute long "Partagaz", that really takes off from the first note. Franco's is the principal voice and Josky and Matalanza drive/answer and run the song to hurricane intensity before Franco lets loose with his guitar after 5 minutes. Wow! Thus the lads build up to guitar solo number 2! This is how they run throughout their seductive disk, and they do reach the heights with "Laissez Passer" (that is also to be found on "The Very Best Of"). Maybe this singing and guitar-playing style seems ingratiating to an unprepared northerner - African music builds a lot on trance-like repeats. Even so, it's damned good!

THE VERY BEST OF  
Manteca/2000

At last!
We rumba freaks in the mountains have for years tried to dig up some decent choices of Franco's disks - without success. Then the newly created English company, Manteca, came to our rescue with a fantastic pearl of an album! I won't claim to know Franco's productions so well that I can say this collection is the absolute creme de la crème, for in principle that’s impossible. Manteca has done it, anyway. Here, one classic trills right after another. It starts with OK Jazz's well-known standard melody that in tranlation sounds something like: "You arrive OK, leave KO." And thus it goes, literally blow by blow. Franco's songs are often in two parts - a long stroke with gentle, jazz-like guitar riffs right before he lets loose and allows the rumba energy to go at full throttle, as in "Azda" or "Attention Na SIDA". ("Watch out for AIDS") This album is musical history in its best condition; you listen through a decade of African hits by the continent’s most important popular musicians of the last century. And the music is still as gripping as ever.

ROUGH GUIDE TO FRANCO
World Music Network/2001

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Design: Idar Lind
English: Katherine Stewart-Kreisman
Swahili: Francis Chagula (francis.chagula@malvik.kommune.no)
Swahili: Habiba Rajabu (habiba@online.no)
Flags: 3Dflags.com

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