Mbongwana Star hails from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo—a network of shantytowns and night shelters where founding members Coco Ngambali and Theo Nzonza (of Staff Benda Bilili fame) pulled together members of a new generation of Kinshasa musicians embodying the concept of “mbongwana,” or “change.”
Batida is Pedro Coquenão and Pedro Coquenão is Batida. There are moments where it’s just him in front of a big crowd, and there are others where Batida is a mutant body, with more musicians, images and people masked that sings and dance on stage. Present however is always a sound that is connected to Pedro’s Angolan roots. A sound that investigates the electric past of a country, transformed in an electronic present, molded to the scale of global dance floors.
Raised in New York City by world renowned Congolese performers, Milandou Badila, known as Young Paris, crafts a unique sound that threads the boundary between rap and electronic dance music and samples heavily from traditional African drumbeats. Along with five of his ten brothers and sisters, Young Paris performs an exuberant live show that merges dance, performance art, and an unparalleled personal style.
Date: August 14