Language:

Swahili

Genre:

Soukous

Instrument:

Guitar Male vocals

Articles:
Interview
Additional biography
Article Afropop
Unofficial albums

On the Internet
Soundtrack on You Tube
Soundtrack 2 on You Tube

Biography

Remmy Ongala and his Super Matimila Orchestra are without doubt Tanzania’s most well known band, and have performed many times in Europe and the USA.
Remmy Ongala is originally from Zaire/Congo. He lost his mother when he was nine years old and had to take on the responsibility of raising his siblings. As a 17-year-old he was in a youth band, Bantu Success, as a singer and drummer. This was not popular with his family, so Remmy had to leave the band. Two years later he was again involved with music when as a guitarist he joined a few groups, among them Mickey Jazz in Zaire and Grand Mika Jazz in Uganda. In 1978 he moved to Tanzania and joined his uncle’s band, Orchestre Makassy in Dar es Salaam.
In 1981 he joined forces with Matimila, an 18-member band owned by a local businessman. Later on he formed Super Matimila and developed a style based on three guitars, bass and drum, plus saxophone. Remmy Ongala based his music on Soukous, that he proffers in a more raw version than usual, rooted as it is in local Tanzanian traditions.
He sets great store by Swahili lyrics that often have political stings against the wielders of power of all description, but he also shows a loyal defence of the common man’s condition. Because of the lyrics’ so-called healing properties he is called “The Doctor” and is an enormously popular man in the Sinza neighbourhood, on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, where he lives with his English wife, five children and a parrot.
The last few years he has not been able to perform as often as before, due to his suffering from diabetes.

Relevant artists:
Virunga
Diblo Dibala
Orchestra Super Mazembe
Orchestra Makassy

SONGS FOR THE POOR MAN  
Realworld/1989

The lyrics are often the most important thing, says Remmy Ongala, as can be seen on this album where all ten songs are sung in Swahili. Many of them have poetic and gripping nerve (these are translated in the accompanying pages). Remmy Ongala has a powerful voice and it is easy to see why this disk was a hit in Tanzania in 1989! The lyrics concern living on the streets, as Remmy himself did during his childhood; life and death; and love. This is beautiful, harsh, and engaging. But it’s not direct and easily digestible.

MAMBO  
Realworld/1992

A more accessible album than the debut, it moves more easily with several catchy songs. The guitar lays down a fine carpet of sound as background for Remmy’s lovely voice. The track “Kidogo, Kidogo” (Little By Little) is one of the strongest anti-AIDS songs I have heard. The song comes from the woman whose husband comes home at two o’clock in the morning: “If I ask you where you have been and where you came from, what will you say, my husband, father of my children? Careful, careful, little by little, remember that no medicine, no injections can help.” Strong message from doctor Remmy, and it swings.

SEMA  
WOMAD/1995

Remmy Ongala comes into his own here before an audience. “Sema” has an atmosphere that the two other discs don’t have, and this is why it’s the one I play most often. The band sounds as good live as in the studio; close and fine sound, recorded by Radio Tanzania in Dar es Salaam, in Falun, Sweden and in England. The lyrics are fresh and speak of the poor and downtrodden’s condition. Grand!

THE KERSHAW SESSIONS  
Strange Roots/1995

For those with an inner relationship to African music Remmy Ongala’s performance at Roskilde was one of the Spring’s peaks on the concert landscape and it is with joy that we greet a new album from the man. Home in Tanzania he has superstar status, in spite of the fact that he was born in neighbouring Zaire, a fact that is reflected in his music. Soukous is an angle of incidence to Remmy’s music, a horse of a different colour than we normally associate with a sophisticated crooners like Kanda Bongo Man and Pepe Kalle. Ongala’s music is rougher around the edges and has a distinctly different twang from the guitars (Soukous’ most important instrument, after the human voice!) than the slick and affected sounds of his colleague in the field. Having said that, I must also mention that this is not a “new” Remmy Ongala album. Instead, it is a gap-filler from BBC’s notorious Andy Kershaw, a collection of radio recordings of Remmy and his band made between 1988 and 1993. But this doesn’t matter, especially since only a couple of these songs are from “Mambo” (1991).
I recommend without reservation this collection as an introduction to his slightly droll East African world. With a blend of politics and humour, he plays over a great Soukous backing that, as it should, run amok at times. This is not only for fun, but most of all for dancing!

Arne Berg

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