A Chat with KOKOKO

KOKOKO!

A chat with KOKOKO!, a fiery Congolese collective hailing from Kinshasa are seemingly a band from the future – stylistically fluid, with countless musical influences ranging from afrobeat to electronica; instrumentally they’re a bricolage, sporting makeshift instruments from repurposed junk like bleach bottle percussion and scrap metal vibraphones. This ultra-contemporary sound is topped off with a pure punk spirit, reflecting the DIY sound of their homeland, and electrifying live sets. Their music is an exhibition of Kinshasa, not only importing the music of Congo but fully embodying the vibe of an exhilarating creative city. A place, they tell me, where music is far more than a pastime, but key to survival. “The chaos, everything’s noisy. The evangelical churches have super loud sound systems and generators that let them stay loud even when the power goes off. Even the street sellers have noises, like the shoe polish guys who have two glass bottles you can hear from far away and megaphones with loops are used to sell mobile phone credits.” Guitarist Boms Bomolo tells me KOKOKO! is “like trying to organise this chaos into something more musical.” “We didn’t have the idea to make our own instruments at first, it came out of necessity.”

They switch their reality sometimes, people are just super creative with the way they walk, dress and sound. “

”I asked Makara Bianco, the group’s frontman, how he started getting into music. He explained how, as far back as he can remember, he was always making music: “In my neighbourhood I would go to Rumba rehearsals (a popular style imported from Cuba). I would sit there, and one day I started to sing like I had been rehearsing myself, and the older guys couldn’t believe it.” Boms told me he always made music after school: “The first thing I remember is seeing a guitar and wanting to touch it. Sometimes I would go up to one and touch it and have to run away because I knew I could get beaten up for it.” Makara splits his time between the band and running an underground nightclub back in Kinshasa. Xavier Thomas, a Belgian musician brought in to amplify the

words by: JAMES MCCLEMENTS design by: ALESSIO PHILIP GRAIN

All the tribes in the Congo have different music, and once we mix all our influences it becomes poison. It’s our poison.

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project, spoke about the “pure punk energy” of Makara. He “sticks his mic into the speakers, with loads of feedback, and a very overdriven sound. It’s an energy he previously couldn’t put a name on as there’s no punk scene in Kinshasa. It is one of our identities but we are many other things as well.” Xavier told me more about the other creative scenes in the city. “There are plenty of performers who do body performance and contemporary art. They perform in the crowd at our gigs and people stick cash on their forehead and hats. There’s a lot of imagination in the city, which is how people get away from their everyday lives. There’s a suburb where people pretend it’s Paris: they’ve adopted the Parisian street names – they even call each other pretending to be stuck on the métro.”