KOKOKO! (CD)
From Kinshasa
Popularity
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About
Built from scrap metal, repurposed junk, and whatever else they could find in Kinshasa, KOKOKO! makes electronic music that sounds like nothing else on the planet. The Congolese collective landed on homemade instruments partly out of necessity, since traditional gear is expensive and hard to come by in their city, but what started as a workaround became their signature. Their sound has drawn comparisons to Grace Jones and Talking Heads, which gives you a rough sense of the energy, but member Makara Bianko sums it up with his own term: tekno kintueni. Their lyrics, sung across Kikongo, Lingala, French, and Swahili, are allegorical takes on the political reality of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The name KOKOKO! itself is Lingala onomatopoeia for knocking on a door, which feels fitting for a group that has been forcing people to pay attention since their debut single in 2017. Their first album Fongola, released in 2019 on Transgressive Records, picked up rave reviews, and they followed it with Butu in 2024.
