In December 2021, UNESCO added Congolese rumba to its list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. No musician did more to shape that music than Franco.
François Luambo Luanzo Makiadi, known simply as Franco, led the band TPOK Jazz for almost three decades. By the time he died in a hospital in Belgium on 12 October 1989, he had recorded more than 600 songs and released more than 200 albums. Across Africa, he was called the Sorcerer of the Guitar.
The rumba
Congolese rumba grew in Kinshasa and Brazzaville from the 1940s, as musicians blended local rhythms with Cuban son and rumba records brought by sailors and traders. It became the soundtrack of both Congos and spread across Africa, with its guitars, horns and long, dance-driven sections known as the sebene.
Early heroes included Wendo Kolosoy, Joseph Kabasele, known as Le Grand Kallé, and Dr Nico. Franco and TPOK Jazz, founded in 1956, became the biggest force of all.
The guitar
Franco’s guitar style, with repeated, interlocking patterns and a thick, driving sound, became the model for countless guitarists across the continent. His band grew into a large orchestra with many singers, guitarists and horn players, and it produced songs in Lingala and other languages.
Songs that said things
Franco’s songs were often long and full of commentary on love, marriage, money, society and politics. Some were controversial, and some led to trouble with the authorities in Mobutu’s Zaire. His 1985 hit “Mario”, about a young man living off an older woman, was one of his biggest sellers. Late in life he recorded “Attention na Sida”, a song warning about AIDS.
Beyond Congo
TPOK Jazz toured across Africa and Europe, and its music was hugely popular in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana and elsewhere. Rumba and its faster descendant, soukous, influenced highlife, benga and much of African pop.
UNESCO
The joint nomination by the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo led to the inscription of Congolese rumba on UNESCO’s Representative List in December 2021. Both countries celebrated the recognition as an acknowledgement of a music that has carried their history, from colonialism to independence to the present.
The legacy
Congolese rumba continues through artists who followed Franco, from Papa Wemba and Koffi Olomide to Fally Ipupa and Ferre Gola. His recordings are still played at weddings, bars and radio stations across Africa.
He recorded more songs than most fans could ever hear. The music he built was declared a treasure of humanity thirty-two years after his death.
