BONGA / ボンガ / KUALUKA KUETU / レコード

力強くアーシーな歌声で、アンゴラを代表する歌手として知られるボンガの 1982年リリース名盤が待望の復刻!宗主国ポルトガルによりアンゴラの言語や文化を禁じられつつも音楽で抵抗を試みたというボンガが23歳のときに出会ったカーボヴェルデの音楽家と録音したのが本作である。ポルトガルのフォークサウンド、センバ、キゾンバ、アフロブラジル、ラテンの要素を混在させた複雑にしてエネルギーにあふれた音楽性、そして焼け付く大地のようなボンガの歌声。ボンガ、そしてアンゴラを取り巻く複雑で困難な状況により生まれた多種多様な音楽の混交ともいえるが、それらがただ同居するのではなく、有機的に絡み合うことで独自の音楽的アイデンティティを獲得している点が実に素晴らしい。全ての音楽ファンに推薦のアンゴラ音楽名盤だ。



Kualuka Kuetu LP is the 6 album (release in 1982) of a discography over 30 albums,
singing in Portuguese and traditional Angolan languages strong growly soulful and moving vocal, from Bonga. Great mix of heartfelt and upbeat tracks. Thoroughly recomend to anyone who enjoys the African Groove &/or Soul.music of Bonga by the successful musical fusion of different styles fusion of traditional African rhythms real music, when it comes from the heart
Bonga the most famous musician from Angola
Bonga the voice of a modern, peaceful Angola.
Icon of Angolan music Bonga is on first-name terms with the stars and has given true meaning to the concept of ‘Africanness’. From Luanda to Rotterdam, Paris to Lisbon, and everywhere else, Bonga belongs to that caste of African singers who have sublimated their roots. His rasping, powerful voice is immediately identifiable e was born José Adelino Barcelo de Carvalho in Kipiri on 5 September 1942, but changed his name to Bonga Kuenda.
He immediately became famous in his native Angola, as well as in Portugal. After the Carnation Revolution in April 1974, he would become a hit both with immigrants from the ex-Portuguese colonies, and Portuguese of both African and European descent.. His tracks are a mixture of Portuguese folk sounds, semba, kizomba and latin elements.
“All Angolan culture was under Portuguese domination. Traditional languages were banned, as was African music. We had no weapons to fight with, so we organised cultural resistance, especially by forming folk groups, including Kissueia, my first band. With Kissueia, I sang songs that revived ancestral African forms and whose lyrics clearly referred to the troubled situation at the time, poverty, colonial violence and laten revolt”

Like Fela Kuti, constantly had to dodge a fascist police force that sought to silence performers who, fortunately for us, steadfastly refused to be silenced. Unlike Kuti, Bonga fled his home country for the more hospitable Portugal (Angola was a Portuguese province at this time and is the language of these songs) at the age of 23, where he met musicians from Cape Verde who put him in touch with a record producer who assembled the composite parts. Bonga’s gravelly, impassioned delivery is backed by the lilting, breezy Cape Verde musicians who play with an easy fluency on the slower, more tropical songs while infusing a more African-based sound on the brisker numbers. It is a testimony to Bonga’s peripatetic travails and travels as well as the producer’s light touch that you can literally hear a sense of both countries in the record’s grooves. The urgency of Bonga’s vocals are matched by the backing musician's glowing touch; both elements inject the songs with conviction and authenticity that are inherently obvious whether you speak Portuguese or not. These songs reach a slow-boil that makes this musical stew a wholly fulfilling concoction
"We had great problems because of the war for independence. When the Portuguese left they dismantled some of the basic structure by smashing and sabotaging equipment and we had to start from scratch. After independence there were no bands at all.”
“I began my career as a protest singer. I criticised the Portuguese first, and then my own people”.