Orchestre Vévé / Les Grands Maquisards – Verckys, 1973

🎶🎤🎷🇨🇩💃 Congolese rumba has just been added to humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. And it deserves it! To mark the occasion, I’m pulling out this 1973 album featuring recordings by one of the pioneers of the genre, Congolese producer, singer and saxophonist Verckys. He had started out with Franco and his T.P.O.K. Jazz, before setting up his own group, the Orchestre Vévé in 1969. Later came the Langa Langa Stars, dissidents of Zaïko Langa Langa. Now seventy-seven, Verckys is enjoying a quiet life away from the stage. On today’s selection, recorded between 1969 and 1973, one side is accompanied by Orchestre Vévé and the other features the first big hits from Ntesa Dalienst’s Grands Maquisards orchestra.