‘Kinshasa Succursale’, Baloji's new CD will be released in late January 2010. This Ex-Starflam (MC Balo) surprised everyone in 2008 with his solo début ‘Hotel Impala’, whi...

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‘Kinshasa Succursale’, Baloji's new CD will be released in late January 2010. This Ex-Starflam (MC Balo) surprised everyone in 2008 with his solo début ‘Hotel Impala’, which ended with the prophetic words ‘I’m going home … nakuenda’. So this time he really has thrown himself upon his Congolese roots... and not just any old how: first and foremost, Baloji went in search of his personal liaison with his fatherland (he was born in Lubumbashi in 1978) after his biological mother asked him: ‘what have you been doing for the past 25 years?’. Aside from that, he wanted this masterpiece - which it undoubtedly is - to examine the country's 50 year independence in a musical context. So he moved to Congo for a while and worked together with local musicians like Konono N°1, La Chorale de la Grâce and Zaïko Langa-Langa. Congo is a fantastic country with many faces and that also delivered a very diverse album musically, with styles like traditional rumba (with its sébéné guitar style, unique to Franco, one of Baloji’s great heroes), the swinging mutuashi and soukous or even elements of ska roots and reggae drenched in Nigerian funk.