Henri Bowane

Guitarist Henri Bowane played an important role in the introduction of Congolese rhumba in the 1950s. The resident bandleader and arranger at Loningisa Studios in Kinshasa (after that Leopoldville), he supplied Franco Luambo Makiadi along with his initial job being a musician. Merging a electric guitar design rooted in the folklore and zebola rhythms from the Mongo people as well as the Latin-American music he noticed in the town, Bowane made a audio that combined the poly-rhythms of highlife as well as the melodic electric guitar custom of soukous. Launching a large number of 78s, he became among the wealthiest performers in Central Africa. His strikes included “Marie-Louise,” “Netale Natal,” and “Wabon Kum Blues,” which he documented with Zaiko Langa Langa. He became the initial Congolese musician to execute outside his homeland when he made an appearance in Angola in 1955. Departing the Congo in 1960, as creator/supervisor of Ry-Co Jazz, Bowane helped to present the rhumba to Western world Africa. He documented his just full-length album, Twice Consider — Tala Kaka, in Ghana in the middle-’70s.