Blog February 17, 2013
Staff Benda Bilili breaks up
Sad news this week on the Congolese music front. A band Afropop has championed as leading the creative cutting edge in Africa's greatest dance music tradition has succumbed to internal strife, and the twisted pressures and intrigues of the international African music market. Andy Morgan does an excellent job of analyzing what went down in this piece in The Guardian, "Staff Benda Bilili, Where did it all go so wrong?
The only thing to add is that this band's New York debut last fall was utterly inspiring, and seemed to breathe new life into Congolese music's prospects in the US after a long lull. So much more's the tragedy!
