Botyiaki Ntembe

Wendo was the foremost crooner on African stages, the writer of “hits” that marked the history of African music, the pioneer or inventor of the Congolese Rumba. He has been protected and then attacked by his country’s politicians. “Marie Louise”, one of the songs to which the Congolese at the time attribu- ted the magic virtue of being able to awaken the dead, was excommunicated and Wendo had to flee to Kisangani.
His story is mixed with that of a whole continent. The story of a natural gift, of an eternal teenager who introduced rumba into Congolese lives and until his death at 83 years old remained an entertainer. A voice that is rough, wild and funny, that bears its own story and passes on the pain, madness and lust for life and singing, that is Wendo Kolosoy.