Artist Bio:
He started life with the name Pascal Tabou in a country called the Belgian Congo. When he became a professional songwriter and singer in the late 1950s (shortly before Belgium withdrew from the Congo), he was known as Rochereau. In 1972, when the name of his country was changed to Zaire and the government decreed that all citizens bear African names, he chose the appellation Tabu Ley. That is the name on a 2002 album, though his oldest fans continue to call him Rochereau. Let posterity determine if he should forever be known as Rochereau or as Tabu Ley—for certainly his name will be writ large in the history of Congolese music.
Pascal Tabou was born in 1940 in the Bandundu region of the Belgian Congo and raised in the colonial capital, Léopoldville (also known as Kinshasa). Schoolmates nicknamed him Rochereau after a French colonel in the Franco-Prussian War. He sang in church, entered amateur singing competitions and, around the age of 16, began submitting original songs to Kallé Kabasele, the leader of Orchestre African Jazz. Adopting Rochereau as his professional name, he made his recording debut with Rock-a-Mambo in 1958 and sang briefly (but did not record) with O.K. Jazz before Kabasele tapped him to join African Jazz in 1959. Already the top band in the Congo, African Jazz fortified its position with Rochereau as one of its featured singers and the author of such hits as "Kelya" and "Anishayi." Nevertheless, in 1963 Rochereau and several colleagues, including the star guitarist Nico Kassanda and his brother Dechaud, broke away from African Jazz to start their own band, African Fiesta. As musical partners Rochereau and Nico made magic; as business partners, however, they made a mess of things and after only a year and a half their band split into African Fiesta National, led by Rochereau, and African Fiesta Sukisa, under Dr. Nico's care.
African Fiesta National's first record was "Mokolo Nakokufa." Written and sung by Rochereau, it was remarkably pensive for a pop song in any culture: Each verse voiced the thoughts of a different character on the day of his or her death. While it wasn't the first rumba Congo to express serious ideas, it may have been the first that made people sit down and listen rather than get up and dance—and the first to be published in an anthology of African literature. Rochereau was not always so philosophical a lyricist, but he chose his words carefully even when he made up Spanish-sounding nonsense. An attentive listener, he was open to diverse influences—Latin music, of course, but also American soul music, country and rock 'n' roll as well as African traditions that most of his contemporaries had ignored—but he was rarely imitative. He composed beautiful melodies for his soft, often plaintive voice, engaging parts for his excellent musicians, and buoyant rhythms for the dancers on stage and in the audience. He invented the soumdjoum rhythm of the early '70s, for example, after admiring the way a man with a bum leg danced. True, he kept up with trends and sometimes followed them in unfortunate directions, but more often he set his own course by his own lights and still pleased his many, many fans.
Some of those fans, abetted by local media, told stories of an epic rivalry between Rochereau and his popular compatriot, Franco. They depicted Rochereau as an intellectual cosmopolitan at odds with the vulgar Franco and cast their respective camps as Apollonians versus Dionysians. The truth is that as the leaders of the two most successful Congolese/Zairean bands of the '60s, '70s and '80s, Franco and Rochereau competed for the best musicians, and though their competition was sometimes tough, they were friends. When Kallé Kabasele died in 1983, Franco and Rochereau got together to record "Kabasele in Memoriam" and wound up making two complete albums (one released under Franco's label, the other under Rochereau's) with musicians from both bands. So much for the contention that their styles were incompatible: Rochereau's music tended to be smooth where Franco's was rough, but a great many listeners loved both.
With his keen ear for talent, Rochereau reinvigorated his band time after time. Though no guitarist equaled Nico, a succession of the doctor's brightest students, including Michelino Mavatiku Visi, Dino Vangu and Nseka "Huit Kilos" Bimuela, upheld Nico's style while Lokassa Ya Mbongo and Bopol Mansiamina perfected Dechaud's mi-composé guitar technique. In fact, as Nico's African Fiesta Sukisa faded away in the early '70s, Rochereau's band—renamed Afrisa—remained a guitarists' stronghold. It was the first of the old-school rumba Congo bands to put a drummer behind a trap-drum set, following the lead of such up-and-coming groups as Zaiko Langa Langa, but the tight, funky sound that Afrisa achieved with the drums bore little resemblance to the rowdier rock of the younger crowd. Moreover, while Zaiko dispensed with horns, Afrisa featured Empompo Loway and Modero Mekanisi, the best Congolese saxophonists of the century as well as a pair of trumpeters. And Rochereau fostered not only instrumentalists but also singers, including more than one who sometimes stole the limelight from him. Sam Mangwana got his start singing with African Fiesta National in 1965, and even after he had had several hits with Franco's T.P.O.K. Jazz he rejoined Rochereau—now Tabu Ley—briefly in the mid-'70s. It was Mangwana who introduced Tabu Ley to the singer and dancer who would become his most famous protégé, Mbilia Bel. The bandleader hired her in 1981and almost immediately promoted her from the chorus line to a starring role opposite him. With the beautiful Bel singing duets and taking solo turns with him on stage and in recordings, Ley finally made the breakthrough to a successful international career that he had been seeking for the better part of two decades. Afrisa toured Africa, Europe and North America to considerable acclaim from audiences and news media, and record companies in France, Britain and the United States released Tabu Ley albums featuring Mbilia Bel.
Bel left Afrisa to pursue a solo career in 1988. By then the economy and government of Zaire were in shambles, and Ley, believing that his future lay abroad, moved to France along with most of the members of his band. In 1994 he and his sidemen moved again, this time to the U.S., where they recorded a pair of exemplary albums. But Ley was unable to regain the momentum he lost when Mbilia Bel left, so after the death of the Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese-Seko he returned home in 1999. The new president of the Democratic Republic of Congo reportedly asked him to be the minister of culture in his cabinet, but Ley evidently declined the invitation, preferring (uncharacteristically) to work behind the scenes in the Musicians' Union. However, he has not stayed out of politics: In 2005 he was elected deputy mayor of the city of Kinshasa. —Ken Braun
Ley, believing that his future lay abroad, moved to France along with most of the members of his band. In 1994 he and his sidemen moved again, this time to the U.S., where they recorded a pair of exemplary albums. But Ley was unable to regain the momentum he lost when Mbilia Bel left, so after the death of the Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese-Seko he returned home in 1999. The new president of the Democratic Republic of Congo reportedly asked him to be the minister of culture in his cabinet, but Ley evidently declined the invitation, preferring (uncharacteristically) to work behind the scenes in the Musicians' Union. However, he has not stayed out of politics: In 2005 he was elected deputy mayor of the city of Kinshasa. —Ken Braun
