🎤🇨🇩💃🎸🎶 Koffi Olomidé has had a tumultuous career, about equally filled with success and scandal. The Zairean singer got his start with Papa Wemba in the late 70s, and the 80s was truly the decade of his rise. He set up his Quartier Latin orchestra, which would accompany him for a long time, and produced his first albums, Diva (1986) and Rue d’Amour (1987). During my stay in Congo, Henriquet was released, marking my immediate and definitive entry into Congolese rumba. Conquered. The cover is strange, with a black and white face enhanced by a bright lipstick, and everything is done to make you notice it. In 1988, Koffi Olomidé was still making real music. The rumba was arranged, enhanced, very « produced », combining modernity and tradition, the sound was worked on and the Tcha Tcho sang, without vocoder – later, in an attempt to stay in the race, he would give in to the marketing sirens, selling bad rapper clips on tracks with hyper-compressed, programmed and soulless sound. But in 1988, Henriquet was a little gem, under Manu Lima’s hand, with the eponymous track, but also Jino and Orphelinat, which shone under Rigo Star’s guitar. The following album, Elle et Moi, is of the same ilk and also deserves a mention.
Henriquet – Koffi Olomidé, 1988
