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Member - Claire | Blog (1)
Mangelepa's 33RD Anniversary |
| Claire (03/20/09 23:48:20) Tag: Featured |
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Mangelepa marking 33RD anniversary Story by AMOS NGAIRA Kabila Kabanze A popular Kenya-based Congolese band Les Mangelepa marks its 29th anniversary this month, the biggest challenges for its founding members is to keep it afloat. Band leader Kabila Kabanze 'Evani', a veteran singer and composer, has no illusions about the difficulty in maintaining a band in these days when the trend is for musicians to go solo and rely on session artistes to record songs. The group is one of the longest surviving Congolese bands in Kenya. In its heyday in the late 1970s and 1980s, Mangelepa wowed and captured a legion of fans with popular songs such as Embakasi, Walter, Nyako Konya, Dracula, Aoko, and Ole Ole. An offshoot of Baba Gaston's Orch Baba Nationale Band, Les Mangelepa was formed in July 1976, and distinguished itself for excellent stage shows in immaculate costumes at the Garden Square Restaurant in downtown Nairobi. They were rivalled in popularity by Super Mazembe, Les Wanyika, Les Kinois, and Simba Wanyika. The band is today based at the Citizen Vibro Club, off Langata Road, in Nairobi, and their shows are always full of nostalgia and patronised by many of their old fans. Kabanze told Lifestyle the band's survival was largely due to unity amongst the founder members, who include Kalenga Nzazi 'Vivi. "Some new people join and leave us but the spirit of Mangelepa still burns inside us," he said. The other founder members are singers and composers Lutulu Kanicky 'Macky', guitarists William Tambwe, and Twikwale wa Twikale. The band suffered a split in the mid-80s, during a tour of Zambia, when some members, including Badibanga wa Tshilumba, Lukangika Maindusa and Lumwanga Mayombo, remained behind to form Super Mangelepa. Kabanze, Nzazi, Macky and others returned to Nairobi to continue with Les Mangelepa. Badibanga, the composer of the hit song, Nyako Konya, has in the past few years been based in South Africa. Since the relaunch of the group in early 2000, when they released their latest CD, Mangelepa Millennium, there has been no turning back for Nzazi, Tambwe and Macky. "Through sponsorship from TopCom Productions, we were able to release our relaunch CD," Kabanze said. As part of their anniversary celebrations, the band has recorded new songs, among Omari, Mombasa and Romana, to feature on an album to be released later in the year. |
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