SOUNDTRACK: JUPITER & OKWESS-Tiny Desk Concert #784 (September 7, 2018).
Jupiter Bokondji comes from the troubled capital of Democratic Republic of the Congo.
He and his band Okwess dress in wonderfully colorful garb. Jupiter’s jacket is practically a zoot suit with blue and white stripes on one side, a red field on the other and giant white stars He has a big hat as well. But he can’t hold a candle on the shirtless drummer who is wearing a red white and blue wrestling mask the whole show.
The guitarist has a beautiful patterned gold shirt with blue lapels and the percussionist in addition to wearing another cool hat has on a terrific sweater.
The band plays “the vibe of Kinshasa street musicians, that feels both African and American” and indeed, “their fierce energy here is an astonishing performance.”
Then of course there’s Congolese rumba, the popular dance music from as early as the 1940s, not too dissimilar from some Cuban music of the day. And the message of the music has been steeped in the complicated politics of the region, stumbling between chaos, anarchy and oppression.
This is urgent music … that stems from the gut but has thought and theatrics to flesh out the feelings. It’s music to be experienced. This is your entry point.
They play 3 songs each with a similar feel but with a very different sound.
“Ofakombolo” is so wonderfully catchy with the percussionist and drummer chanting the chorus on the first time around. On the second the rest of the band sings too, for a nice harmony. The bassist gets what sounds like a rap guest verse before playing a kind of funky bass solo. The percussionist is great for shouts and trills animals noises, too. The music is nonstop, propulsive and fun, with a distinctive guitar solo sound.
“Pondjo Pondjo” starts with a quiet guitar intro. But it is joined by the drummer whistling and the percussionist pulling a string through a plastic container, making a crazy squeaky sound that works wonders as a percussive sound. The bassist seems to be singing lead on this song (a very different voice).
Jupiter introduces “Ekombe” by saying “Let’s go to dancing!” It opens with a funky bass line and the drummer playing a fast hi-hat beat and chanting. It’s a very dancey with a slinky guitar line running throughout the song. There’s a nifty breakdown in the middle which features some fun on the bass and a wild solo to end the song.
This is a wonderful introduction to Congolese music. Stay for the end, as they end the show with a post-credits kung fu pose.
[READ: January 5, 2017] “In the Act of Falling”
Boy this was a dark, dark story. After the last line I actually said aloud, “Jesus, Danielle, what the hell.”
This is the story of a family: a woman, her husband and their nine-year-old son, Finn. Finn was recently suspended from school for punching a fellow student in the mouth.
They live in a an old house that they imagined fixing up but two years later even the dining room is unfinished.
Finn is in the yard setting up a volleyball net–but he is doing it sideways like a hammock. It turns out he is setting it up to catch ducks as they fall from the sky. Birds were the next heralders of the apocalypse. And, she had seen that all of the ducks in St Stephen’s green were dead–all of them. She probably shouldn’t have told Finn this, but she did. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 