Member of:

OK Jazz Festival de Maquisards

Musician for:

Franco

Language:

Lingala Kikongo Portugese Spanish French Swahili

Genre:

Soukous Rumba congolais

Instrument:

Male vocals

Articles:
Interview
Kenyapage - Article

On the Internet
Article at World Music Portal
Music samples(search artist+shift)
Discography

Biography

Sam Mangwana is one of the central veterans of Congo's music godfather, Franco's legendary orchestra, OK Jazz. It was the axis at the centre of Kinshasa - the capitol of what was then called Zaire, and therefore the axis on which all other music between Nigeria and The Indian Ocean revolved. Nothing less. He was at the centre of development of the Cuban-influenced Zaire rumba into a harder, more modern and far more African musical form. Here in the North this often goes by the name of soukous and, since the beginning of the 1980, has been the equivalent of music from Congo.
Sam Mangwana was born in Kinshasa in 1945. His parents were Angolan immigrants, refugees from the Portuguese colonial regime in Angola. Sam's father established himself as a shopkeeper in Kinshasa, and his mother sang at important events at a soscial club for Angolan mothers. In his father's grocery shop, young Sam listened to Radio Congo Belge and discovered music of other countries, Cuba, Spain and the USA.
In a boarding school, run by salvation Army missionaries, Sam was singing in the Kasangulu church choir.
As a young man he more or less accidently met with the musiciens Taby Ley and Dr. Nico. This meeting changed his life. He started to sing with different groups and was taught "tricks of the trade" by Tabu Ley and Nico.
In 1968, Sam Mangwana took part in the forming of the group Festival de Maquisards, with the help of sponsor Denis Llosono. The aim was to bring something new into Congolese music. Mangwana's knowledge of Portugese made him able to easyly pick up "latino" influences.
In 1972 Sam Mangwana joined forces with the great Franco, another legend of Congolese music. Five years later sam Mangwana launched a solo career before moving to West Africa. In the late seventies he had several hits and his career really took off. His name spread from West and Central Africa, then East and even Southern Africa and Europe. In 1979, Sam Mangwana filled Le Bataclan in Paris four weekends in a row.
In the 1980's Mangwana made a name for himself in the USA, and has attracted considerable media coverage there. In 1998 his album "Galo Negro" was internationally acclaimed and won a "Gold Star" at the Crossroads Awards for World Music in 1999.
Sam Mangwana usually sings about love, in songs where he tells a particular story. But his lyrics also have political tendencies. Songs like "Canta Mocambique", "Soweto" and "Zimbabwe" pay tribute to the struggle against colonialism. A true Pan African, Mangwana's dream is "an Africa without guns, where democracy will not be submitted to the rise and fall of the dollar."

Arne Berg/Bjørn-Erik Hanssen

Relevant artists:
Franco
Papa Noel
Bonga
Kekele
Mbilia Bel

MARIA TEBBO
Sterns Africa/1995

The most sensitive dance music you have ever heard.

Carl Hoyt, Original Music

FOR EVER (With Franco)
Syllart

Ironically enough, this was Franco's last release. Despite rumours of AIDS, the guitar playing was as brilliant as ever, if he did some of his middle of the range solos that he loved or stayed with a teasing beat behind the sovereign Mangwana.

John Storm Roberts, Original Music

RUMBA MUSIC  
Celluloid/1995

The forerunner to Zaire's hysterically popular music, soukous, was called "Zaire Rumba" and grew to great heights thanks to two distinct legends: Franco and Tabu Ley. Since then, youth has overtaken the scene with soukous and ultra-forte guitar rhythms. One of these youngsters was Sam Mangwana, who repeatedly goes out on the dance floor with Franco - that is perhaps why he’s now released an album of considerably more "olden days" orientated music. Rightly enough, he gives flashing examples of his more entrancing side, but first and foremost this is a toned down, rumba-oriented album - and more than that. On "Minha Angola" he sings in PORTUGESE, thereby paying homage to that torn country. Last but not least, there are 3 pure salsa songs with Cuban tones reminiscent of Senegal's favourite, Africando.
When soukous came into being it was partly because there was a need for national Zaire music, and it was a reaction to the imported Latin American rhythms that had so far dominated. Of course, this is a somewhat simple explanation but nevertheless it seems as if the time has come to look out across the border again, and re-establish old connections. This album seems refreshingly new, despite its historically inspired tones. Sam Mangwana is alive and well!

Arne Berg

GALO NEGRA  
Musidisc/1998

Seductive, silky, and so African it brings tears to your eyes. And at the same time it’s a different sort of surprise album from one of Congolese pop music's most important groups of the last twenty years. He suddenly seems to have abandoned the hard nightclub scene for the softer, more Latino and more ambitious music. He has gathered together old masters from OK Jazz on choir and guitar (Papa Noel!) and taken on the enormous task of developing the musical richness of African to an extent that has been tried before, but rarely so successfully. It is the Africa of the Portuguese on which he concentrates. Marabenta from Mozambique, the merengue (!) from Angola, and Cape Verde's wonderful morna are knitted together against Cuban sounds. The whole thing is accompanied by Madagascar’s Regis Gizavo on accordion; he gives it the quiet melancholic undertone that characterises all music from Madagascar. The languages are Portuguese and Lingala, both with a softness and sadness that set them apart from other languages in the area; they give this disk a unity that springs out from the history of all these lands. Sam Mangwana must have had something of the sad colonial history in his mind when he created this work that will put him firmly in history books as one of Africa's all-time finest songwriters.

Arne Berg

SINGS DINO VANGU  
Sterns Africa/2000

Recorded in Paris where the old war horses, Sam Mangwana and Dino Vangu from Mangwana's band, Festival des Maquisard, have again found each other. Talk about chemistry! Guitarist Dino Vangu has composed all the songs and stuck to the traditional recumbent style, and Sam Mangwana sings them like a god, ingratiatingly and alluringly. The opening song, "Femmes Africaines", is a langoruous track that rolls away with a high parasol factor; it goes right in. You couldn’t wish for more seductive music! The guitar play on the Rumba Congolese is far more fastidious and relaxed than in the more frenetic soukous, but no less rhythmic. This swings fantastically in an African fashion. After the gracious opening, the elder men have been tempted to rev up the tempo close to soukous level, something that I think lets the disk down. But the charm and sensuality are in keeping with the rich material; it's never hysterical or monotonous, even though we have heard some of it before. On the whole: A lovely album!

BEST OF
AIR B.MAS/2001

CANTOS DE ESPERANCA  
Nextmusic/Sonodisc/2003

"Cantos de esperanca", "Songs of hope" is the uplifting title of this album, and the tireless Pan Africanist Mangwana really strikes positive strings; the record sounds warm and optimistic from the first chord. Mangwana still operates solidly within "rumba congolais", which his mixes with latin impulses, like in for instance in the song "Comité ya bantous" where influences of salsa/calypso are clearly heard. Sam Mangwana has to a great extent taken part in the creation and development of the rumba genre in Central Africa for the last 30 years. Both his last albums, "Galo Negro" and "Sings Dinu Vangu" are soverign show off examples by the old fox, who by no means has intensions of stepping back. "Cantos de esperanca" continues where "Dinu Vangu" ends, the style is laidback, still filled to the brim by stinging guitar riffs in combination with Mangwana's silky voice. "Cantos-" is also quite similar to "Galo Negro"; in fact the title track is also, for some reason, included here, and the arrangements follow the same lines, with accoustic guitar in front. Both violin, flute, saxophone and accordion also accompany Mangwana this time, perfectly ajusted to his voice. The energy in these songs is striking, and they really become hopeful - for a continent with many problems. Mangwana as usual sings in many languages; French, Spanish, Portugese, Lingala and Kikongo.
Sam Mangwana has always worked with first class guitarists, on the above mentioned albums from 1998 and 2000 he was accompanied by Papa Noel and Dinu Vangu. This time another of his old friends from Festival de Maquisards, Dizzy Mandjeku, teams up. Which one of these excellent instrumentalists that is performing the best I'm not able to tell. Mandjeku's playing is like the two others laidback and cool, no big exagerations here, only this wonderful PLAYFULNESS, plus brilliant technique. I simply love the way these lads play guitar.
"Cantos de esperanca" is a very well produced album. If one shall compare it to "Galo Negro" most things are as good, but perhaps is "Cantos-" in lack of the searching melancholy that makes "Galo Negro" such a gripping cycle of songs. But what you prefer is of course a matter of taste. "Cantos de esperanca" states Sam Mangwana's positon as one of the great singers and style creators in African music.
(After three weeks of playing I have to admit that this record gets better and better: Simply a top disc!)

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