The return of Kofi Olomide

The Congolese singer Kofi Olomidé performs a concert in Kampala on April 25 at the invitation of the Rotary Club to raise money for the Blood Bank.
It is not clear why the Rotarians invited Olomidé to perform at this time.
Over the last 12 years, locally composed and produced Ugandan music has come to enjoy the majority market share in the country.

This is largely due to improved digital production facilities and the reduced costs of recording and producing music, and the expansion of corporate sponsorship of the Ugandan music industry.
A leading Ugandan singer, on the face of it, would have been a better choice for the fundraiser.

There is, though, justification in the choice of Kofi (or Koffi) Olomidé. He was one of several Zairean musicians and bands that enjoyed wide popularity in Uganda in the 1990s.

There seemed to be an endless number of them visiting Uganda every two months or so, or played non-stop on radio and in the nightclubs, from Tshala Muana to Yondo Sister, Pepe Kalle, Kanda Bongoman, Madilu System, Loketo and others.

Kofi Olomidé’s song, Papa Plus, was the second most-popular song in Uganda of 1994, according to an end-of-year listenership survey by Capital FM in December 1994.

Olomide’s music
What do listeners find appealing with Olomide’s music? The main element is its sense of drama. It is made to feel dramatic. Many of his hits like Papa Plus start off with suspense in the first few seconds, then suddenly go into the main chords and verses. Midway into the song, like many Congolese tracks, the mind tempo gives way to an up tempo dance with the Rhythm guitar displaying his virtuoso, the part where Ugandans like to get “paka chini”.

To this day, Congolese music, on average, is the most popular music of any African nation across the continent. Nigerian, Malian and Senegalese music is popular in West Africa, South African music in southern Africa, Kenyan music in Kenya and Tanzania.

But only Congolese music cuts across much, if not most, of Black Africa, making it the de facto “African music” in the same way the traditional Nigerian robes have come to define the “African look” both at home and among Diaspora Africa.

Apart from a brief period in 1986 and 1987 when South African “bubblegum” music (Brenda Fassie, Chico, Yvonne Chaka Chaka) dominated the Ugandan scene, 1979 when Kenya’s Les Wanyika saw a burst of popularity, and 1982 to 1983, when Soca music from the Caribbean was the most popular Black foreign “World Music” in Uganda, the constant all these years was music from the then Zaïre.

In the 1970s during the rule of Idi Amin, Congolese music was at its peak of popularity in Uganda. The Uganda Army Malire Jazz Band was structured in a similar way to Franco’s T.P.O.K Jazz band.

Congolese music first became popular in Uganda in the late 1950s just before independence and grew in appeal in the 1960s.

Besides, most of the current crop of Uganda’s leading singers and bands sing in Luganda, a virtual Lingua Franca among the southern and southeastern Bantu tribes but which leaves out music fans in northern and northeastern Uganda where the default mass popular African music, then, remains Congolese.

For these reasons, the Rotary Club, in partnership with Monitor Publications Ltd, has made a safe and certain bet on Kofi Olomidë.
Ugandans in their 30s and older will fondly remember the popularity of his band in the 1990s and many in this age group are now in the middle to upper ranks of the professional workforce and business --- the very demographic and income group that a fundraising event would be wise to target.

Before 1986, Kofi Olomidé was still unknown to the Ugandan public. He was a very popular but still local Congolese artiste, overshadowed by his better known contemporaries such as Franco.

His first major hit outside Zaïre and Congolese circles was Henriquet, released in 1988 and sang in honour of the country’s beauty queen, Miss Congo.

The 1990s saw the explosion in popularity in the region of Soukous music from Congo. Olomidé recorded seven albums between 1990 and 1994.
In 1992 he won the “Best Male singer” and ‘Best Video” awards at the African Music Awards in Abidjan, in Cote D’Ivoĭre.

By now, Ugandans were starting to discover this long-successful but until the 1990s largely unknown singer. The arrival of the private FM radio stations, Radio Sanyu and Capital FM in 1994, helped to bring him to a much wider audience and in a shorter time than before.

In the era of music videos, Olomidé’s flamboyant, flashy suits, stage antics and backing “Queen dancers” added to his overall appeal as a stage performer.

That was how a business student established himself in his home country, consolidated his audience in the 1990s and in the mid 1990s finally crossed over in appeal to Uganda, the country that borders Congo to the east

Who is Olomide?
Kofi Olomide was born on August 13, 1956, in the northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nicknamed “Antoine Makila Mabe”’ (“Bad blooded Anthony” or “Antoine”), he showed an early interest in music and often improvised performances on popular songs of the day.

He went to France to study Business Administration at the Bordeaux Business University in the late 1970s, earning a business studies diploma in 1980. But his interest in music soon had him abandon a corporate career in business and concentrate full-time on music.

His first composition as a songwriter, titled Onia, was a success. He then turned to recording his own songs as a vocalist: Asso and Princesse Ya Senza, recorded at the Veve Studios in the Zaïrean capital Kinshasa, the recording home of the popular band, Orchestra Veve.

He came to the attention of fellow musicians Papa Wemba and the band Zaiko Langa Langa, with whom he would start to collaborate. In 1978, Koffi Olomidé won the award of “Best Zaïre Artiste” for his song Aniba.

In 1983, he recorded his first full album of songs, titled Ngouda.
In 1986 he formed a band which he called Quartier Latin, probably after the suburb in the French capital Paris called Latin Quarter or Quartier Latin.