‘Rumba River’ pays tribute to legendary Congolese musician (Leader Newspaper, NJ)

Photo, First Run Features Wendo Kolosoy and Antoine Moundanda remember the old days in “On the Rumba River,” a film by Jacques Sarasin.

By Kam

(June 12, 2008) — Born in Northern Congo in 1925, Antoine Kolosoy divided his youth between honing his skills at boxing and playing the guitar.

Roaming
up and down the Congo River on his ramshackle raft, he acquired the
nickname Wendo while developing a loyal musical following, despite
having his songs banned by the local church and Belgian bureaucrats who
had colonized his homeland.

The establishment’s fear was that his
tunes might contain secret messages intended to foment civil unrest,
since the lyrics were in his native Lingala. Many of his colleagues
were, in fact, assassinated for refusing to perform in Portuguese.

Wendo’s
verses were actually apolitical, and after his first album was recorded
and released in 1948, he became the Congo’s first rumba superstar,
performing in and around the country’s capital, Kinshasa, with his
band, Victoria Kin.

He went on to find fame as a professional boxer and musician, though the latter career would prove to be the more enduring.

His
music would even survive the blighted nation’s decades of
post-independence suffering marked by poverty, oppression and civil
war, during which Wendo’s brand of rumba would serve to sustain the
spirits of the Congolese people.

Ultimately, the venerable
cultural icon did fall on hard times, and was temporarily reduced to
begging for tips until mounting a successful comeback in the 1990s.

“On
the Rumba River,” a retrospective directed by Jacques Sarasin (“I’ll
Sing for You”), is an endearing mix of reminiscences and impromptu
concerts by Wendo and some of his former sidemen, all of whom are by
now senior citizens.

Plus, the picture features plenty of
compelling cinematography guaranteed to give the uninformed a good idea
of what life might be like in a land where over four million souls have
perished in a never-ending cycle of exploitation and ethnic cleansing.

The
film serves as an overdue tribute to some talented geezers which might
as well be called “The Kinshasa Social Club,” if you get my drift.