Okay, I'm super excited about our next guest, and especially excited to have some representation from Francophone Africa.
You know one of the most incredible things of musical discovery, as you know the constant discovery of new old music,
and I think for a lot of people in this room, they've had the pleasure of jumping down that worm hole,
that is, that incredible worm hole that is discovering African music and the thing about African music,
is every single country in Africa has its own regional styles that have been developing for decades and decades and decades.
Obviously you know many people in this room are familiar with the music of Fela Kuti and Afrobeat,
of course High Life, which was a musical style that began in Sierra Leone and West Africa
and became very popular in Ghana.
Obviously. And in South Africa you've had styles like Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela,
Ethiopa with the whole EthioJazz movement.  Like I say, every country has got their own incredible styles.
But there's one style of music that has had such an incredible impact all throughout Africa,
and that's the style of Congolese soukous and the music of Congo, and our next guest
just so happens to be one of the biggest stars of Congolese music. He got a start in 1969
with a group called Zaiko Langa Langa, who went on to become one of the greatest bands that Congo ever knew.
Performed in Zaire '74, he then had a group called Isifi Lokole, and Viva la Musica, and still to this day,
one of the greatest voices the Congo has ever known.
Also, if anyone has seen those photos on the Internet of those very well dressed gentlemen of Kinshasa,
this was a movement that this man helped to found. Needless to say,
we're going to have some great stories over the next couple of hours.
Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Papa Wemba.
Papa Wemba, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you very much. I'm very happy to be here
and to share the work that I've done over several decades with all the people present here today.
Great. And by the way, one thing I will say. Obviously, as most of the people in this room aren't speaking French,
or understanding French, we're wearing these devices. So if there are any slow pauses on my behalf after each translation,
please bear with me.
But look, Papa Wemba: it's so great to have you at the Academy. It's truly an honour.
It must be noted that, a couple of days ago, you flew in from Kinshasa, the city where you were raised,
and you are heading to Kinshasa tonight.  Tell us about Kinshasa, right now: 2015 Kinshasa.
Wow, Kinshasa is a huge city and it's really diverse.  There are foreigners here, and we're very happy to welcome them,
we house them, we don't expect anything in return, but it's a huge musical city as well.
On every street corner you can hear music that's broadcast all the time, very loudly, and apart from music
the locals also love football.  They love football.
So you weren't born in Kinshasa, but from a very early age you moved to Kinshasa.
You were born in 1949, so all of a sudden you've grown up as a young Papa Wemba,
in Kinshasa in the '50s. Tell us about that: what was Kinshasa like to grow up in the '50s?
My father was someone who had fought with the Belgian Army during the Second World War,
and just afterwards his military conscription he decided to settle in Kinshasa. My mother was still too young at the time,
so she stayed in the village while she was pregnant, so I was born in a small village.
A little time afterwards, my dad decided to move us to the capital (which was called Leopoldville at the time,
Kinshasa today) because it was still a Belgian colony.  So I grew up in Leopoldville
and I studied there as well, and that's also where I started off on my career.  I think that was 20 years after I was born.
So Leopoldville, up until 1960 - you know that 1960 was when Congo was to gain its independence.
Just to give us an idea of the music that you were hearing around this time, what was the music you were
growing up? What was Congolese music looking like in the '50s?
Well when we were growing up, every Sunday and every Sunday without fail, there were traditional bands
who came from all over the country, and they would go from street to street, to play music in the open air.
And absolutely free traditional music, because in the Congo there were over 450 ethnic groups and each of
them had their musical style.  So we're very, very lucky. We're blessed to have that incredible richness.
So I grew up with all those musical styles, and I listened to them from everywhere.
And Kinshasa was also one of the first African cities to begin to import music from other places,
music from abroad basically, and that's how I managed to take in a lot of different musical styles.
All right. During this time, the modern music of Congo had a man named
Wendo Kolosoy, aka Papa Wendo, and I think we're going to listen to a track right now that was one of the
biggest hits in the '50s. Tell us a bit about Papa Wendo, and the first time you remember hearing Papa Wendo
and his influence within Congo?
Well, Wendo Kolosoy was one of the greatest singers and guitarists of the Congo, and he was hugely
successful. From time to time he was in Kinshasa and Brazzaville, because they're the closest cities in the world.
There's only a river between them and crossing that river takes 20 odd minutes.
Kolosoy used to go to Brazzaville very often, where he met his friend,
Paul Kamba.  Paul Kamba had his own group, Victoria, that played live really often, and Wendo,
when he heard that [group], came back to Kinshasa and created his own rival group. This group was also
called Victoria,
and that's how Wendo got his success. In the beginning he worked on boats - he was a sailor - and
his boat went all over. Each time he went on his boat, he'd take his guitar and he would sing for the
passengers. That's how he built his career.
All right. We're going to listen to a track by Papa Wendo right now. This is a track I think that was
released in 1953. It's called "Marie Louise."
When you hear that song, Papa Wemba, what does it take you back to? What does it remind you of?
Well, actually, I'm going to tell you a story.  Something I heard.  Because I was still a kid when this came
out, I didn't know it that well, but people said that every time he sang this song, people would
come back from the dead.
It's true - it's a true story.
Because if you go into a spot, an open air bar, and there aren't many people, and whenever he played this song,
lots of people would come seemingly out of nowhere - beautiful ladies, well dressed men - people
thought that they were people who came from some other world. So we really did believe that.
And we still believe it now, actually.  And that's why Marie Louise... Marie Louise is a woman's name,
it's Marie and Louise, two names together.  And in Lingala, we say Mali Louisa.
Just for people in this room that don't know, what is Lingala?
In the Congo, there are four vernacular languages. Lingala, that's spoken everywhere in the whole country,
Swahili, that's also spoken mainly in the East. There's Choruba, which is spoken in the centre of the country,
and Kituba, in the South.
But Lingala was a language invented by soldiers to communicate amongst themselves.
And Congolese Rumba is spoken more often in Lingala than anywhere else.
I think what's interesting in listening to that track as well is you get a little bit of an insight into this kind
of musical melting pot that was Congolese music in the 50s. And underpinning that track we
just heard is that basic High Life rhythm - that "da, da, da - da, da" - and the influence of
Cuban Rumba in particular, Cuban song. What I'd like to know is - especially with the Cuban side of things -
how were these [styles of] music finding their way into Congo in the '40s and '50s?
Oh, great. The inspiration for Congolese music came from High Life music in the beginning.
So it was High Life, and afterwards Le Grand Kallé, that brought electric guitar sounds to Congo, to Congolese Rumba.
And at that time, which was in the '50s, we listened to a lot of Afro-Cuban music and it was all those influences
that made Congolese Rumba into what it is today, basically:
the incorporation of the electric guitar, of wind instruments, and a plethora of like-minded singers.
We didn't actually know that you just had one singer that played for one band. We had lots of different
interchangeable singers, and that went on for a long time. And there's also the evolution that was
happening in the world. Technology was moving forward, and that still happens today.
I think one thing that's really interesting about the Cuban influence is that if you go back in time
to the 16th century, it was in fact slaves that came from Congo and Angola that ended up in Cuba,
and brought their music and their rhythms with them: that had been with them for generations and
generations, and in a very interesting way. Now, all of a sudden, those African rhythms that were in Cuba
came back to Africa.
Were Congolese aware of that history, and did they feel also that their music and their
rhythms were coming back to them, finally?
Well, it's like a boomerang. As we were saying before: us, the Congolese, we weren't slaves,
and when we mention Rumba, we're not the ones who gave it that name. Actually, it's the white man who did.
Rumba at the beginning was a dance.
It was a dance called Kumba. Kumba means belly button, so it was the belly button dance.
The white man, instead of saying "Kumba," used to say "Rumba,"
and that's the way things stayed. People from Angola, a lot of them became slaves. Us Congolese,
we didn't have to experience that. But all those influences...
Well, there was one great musician from Angola, De Oliveira, who lived and played in the Congo.
He also influenced Congolese music. Congolese music underwent lots of changes from influences from all over the world.
What was the moment for you, Papa Wemba, when you discovered that you had a voice yourself?
Now, I understand that your mother used to sing. If you tell us a bit about the role. She was what was
known as a mourner. If you could tell us a bit about that, and when you started to sing
with her during this time as a young man in Kinshasa?
Lots of people don't understand. At home in Africa, lots of things happen that will be difficult for you
to understand as Europeans.
Each time there's a funeral wake, we don't take our dead to the morgue. They come back home,
where they used to live, and we set them up outside and the whole village comes and cries for the deceased.
For those who have disappeared.
That's changed a lot today, but in the past that's how things happened. There are people all around,
who come and sing on a voluntary basis.
They weren't professionals or anything like that.  Basically no money exchanged hands.
They did this because they wanted to, and my mother was a mourner in this fashion.
For decades, I was living alone with my mother and she would take me everywhere.
She would sing and she would cry at various funerals, and that's it basically.
When did you start singing with her?
I never sang with my mom.  She actually - well, from time to time, at home, when I was just starting
humming a tune and she'd hear me sing, she'd come towards me and listen to what I was doing.
If I sang very well she said, "Oh, well done my son," but if I was losing the tune a bit she would correct me.
She was my first audience and singing teacher, and I wasn't even 10-years old.
When I was 11 or 12-years old, maybe 13-years old, in the neighborhood where I grew up with my friends,
we would create our own instruments - our own guitars, our own drums - and we went from street corner
to street corner. I was the only singer in this group of friends with our homemade instruments.
And that's how I started, 12 to 14-years old.  I think that was in me already and I was more than willing
to do that. When I was 15-years old, I forgot all about that and I got into football instead, because I love football
as well, but luckily - well, unluckily for me I guess - I didn't last that long in that field
and when I was 19-years old, I decided to leave school and sing instead.
Just before we get to this monumental moment in your career where you launch your own band,
I just want to go back in time a little bit, to 1960, when you would have been about 11 or 12-years old.
There was another artist called Joseph Kabasele, another one of these legendary artists - Le Grand Kallé,
as he was known - and he was in the history of Congolese music one of the, after Wendo, he kind of
came next and took Congolese music to its next evolution. But what's really important about this next track
we're about to play is that this was the song that was played everywhere in 1960.
This was the anthem not just for Congo, but for a lot of Africa.
What is this track? And, yes,
how important was what happened in 1960?
Actually, in the '60s, almost 50 African countries claimed their independence. At that time, the Congolese
government had asked Le Grand Kallé to bring a group of artists and musicians
to the roundtable discussions in Brussels, where politicians were brokering Congolese independence.
In turn, Kabasele and his band penned a tune called "Independence ChaCha" which went all around Africa,
up and down the continent. I remember, three or four years afterwards, that 17 African countries
celebrated 50 years of independence and it's the only song that went all over the world.
Let's have a listen to it with that great intro. Thank you, Papa Wemba. This is Le Grand Kallé,
and it came out in 1960 (as Papa Wemba mentioned, for the independence of Congo). This is "Independence Cha Cha."
So once again - Joseph Kabasale, Le Grand Kallé, "Independence ChaCha." Can you paint us just a quick picture,
Papa Wemba, of the feeling in the air? I mean, you were 11 or 12-years old, Congo was free, it was independent
from what was you know that the history books will tell you was one of the harshest colonial rules ever, at the hands of the Belgians.
Were you old enough to have an idea of what was going on politically, and was there celebration in the air?
I was. I'd just turned 10-yars old and I know that, on that day, I'd come back from the football stadium. We'd just been
to see a match between two big Kinshasa clubs and just as we left, near where I lived with my parents,
there was a political meeting.  I went to this meeting with my brother
and the person speaking kept on saying "Independence in Lingala,"
and everyone who was there kept on clapping and clapping and clapping for independence,
over and over again. It was the 1st of January 1959, and on the 4th of January there was this huge uprising.
Everyone left their home and there was a riot.
People started killing each other all over the place, and I witnessed this. Even though I was only 10-years old,
I still remember this. I witnessed this myself. Independence wasn't easy.
It was only after lots of political discussions that the Belgians had accepted that the country should be independent.
It's interesting. I think the track we just heard just then is quite telling,
when you're talking about the evolution of Congolese music during this time. You can't help but not talk
about the political situation because politics and music were very intertwined.  This is
the Red Bull Music Academy, not the Red Bull Political History Academy, so we'll keep it kind of brief,
but you know this period where you were in your teenage years, just before Zaiko dropped,
Congo was in a state of chaos. There was a very, very brief leader, Patrice Lumumba,
who you know for full reasons... I'll leave it with you as to what happened to Patrice Lumumba,
but then a man named Mobutu took power and for the next three decades, the image of Congo,
which was now named Zaire, was one that was led by this man Mobutu.
Just very briefly, can you remember this moment when Mobutu took power,
and was it welcomed by the Congolese at the time?
Well, I'm going to ask the permission of all the participants who are here, because I've really come here to speak
not about politics but about the art that I know, that's to say music. Politics is something that limits
and holds all of us - and we're all politicians in our way, because politics catches up with all of us and the politics
of your country catches up with you.
I'm from an African country, so it's my duty to vote and it's the duty of every citizen.
It's true that we were all happy to be independent.  Everyone was happy. It was the whole of black Africa
that wanted to become independent.  Whether we remember Lumumba, whether we remember Kumba
even those of the previous century - Mandela obviously - everyone knows that
it's for the black man to be free in his movement, free to do what he wants to do, and to also be equal
to the white man. All of that's a struggle that carried on despite us,
because our blood is all the same colour and we only have one creator, Godly father, whether we want that or not.
It's true. So humanity: we must all come together as one, and now. With our arms folded,
we're witnessing everything that's happening in the world today because of that separation.
If we were all together, I don't think all this would happen. Because God put within us, one thing: like your brother,
love your brother as you love yourself, and even as God did this, he knew that it was difficult.
We were delighted to be independent, and that's why there were all those political movements,
but despite this, we still suffer. We still have to put up with this, but life goes on.
I'll tell you what: for the technical team, we're going to jump over the first video and I'd like to play everybody
the second video that we've got lined up. This is a video of Zaiko Langa Langa performing on a TV show.
As you mentioned, you were a very young man, Papa Wemba, and you launched this band
Zaiko Langa Langa. For anyone in this room who is Congolese or knows anything about
Francophone African music, Zaiko Langa Langa is the one name that everybody knows.
It began in 1969. Let's watch this video 2 first, and then we'll chat about Zaiko Langa Langa.
My daughter (who is in the room today) wasn't born when I started. She wasn't even born,
so she's going to discover this with you.
All right, here is the second video.
Oh man, what an incredible video. Papa Wemba: you look very, very, very, very, very young.
Thank you. Yes, that's for sure.
When you watch that video, what does it take you back to?
Well, old memories. Old memories. That's it.
Tell us about Zaiko Langa Langa. We kind of talked through this era,
where there were these old kind of very, very established artists, and the way Zaiko Langa Langa
came on the scene in 1969... it was like this new breed had come through. These young Congolese men,
or boys if I should say, who were really about to take Congolese music to all new places. Tell us about Zaiko Langa Langa.
Well, actually, we brought a lot of things when we turned up on the scene.
We thought we were The Beatles. It was a kind of revolution like that.
And we brought styles of dance, a new type of animation, because music from elsewhere
had invaded Kinshasa. In the early '70s,
that was a time of big, black American singers
like James Brown, Otis Redding and lots more besides, and in Europe there were bands like The Beatles
and the Stones, and Johnny Halliday for France, and so many more... it really was the influence for that time,
we really thought we were The Beatles, and even our fans as well. They thought of us like that, too,
and so we were really successful at the time.
So, what was it like being 20-years old and being the equivalent of the Congolese Paul McCartney?
Well, it's true. We were a bit crazy. In our heads, we actually wanted to measure up to them.
That's what we wanted. There was also the influence of Cuban music, too.
Bands like the Fania All Stars, and artists like Johnny Pacheco, Ray Barretto, Celia Cruz, artists like that.
There was this effervescence: all of these young people making Congolese Rumba.
When did the you first start to hear the word "Soukous" in reference to the music
that you guys were making, and Congolese music and dance at the time?
Well, we never called our music Soukous.  We never called it like that. It's something that was made
up abroad. Soukous is a dance where two dancers move apart from each other and take part in a
kind of battle
and try to win that.
It's true. When we came here in the '80s, to France, we started to hear people talk about the Soukous
musical genre. But otherwise - at home, when you mentioned Soukous - Soukous is a dance.
It's dancing. That's it.
One of the things that underpins all Congolese music - this kind of new, vibrant music
that was coming out of Congo, that bands like Zaiko were creating - is this thing known as the Seben.
For those that just watched that video: we have a track that starts with a slower
Congolese Rumba,
which is a love song or what have you, and then all of a sudden there's always a point in the track,
when it hits the Seben
and we get these guitar phrases that start repeating over and over and over and it kind of moves
into this uptempo part.
Tell us about the importance of the Seben.
I mentioned the Kumba - "belly button" - earlier, and so Rumba is "the belly button dance."
Congolese Rumba is divided into several sections: the introduction, the verse, chorus and then Seben.
The Seben comes from "seven" in French, and that rhythm is 7/7. That's what it's called.
But instead of saying "seven,' we called it "Seben." That's when the two dancers come apart
and try to win a dance battle, and when the solo guitarist is also trying to get noticed -
to show off within the track - because this section at the end, throughout the track,
only accompanies the singers
with small riffs, but during the Seben we leave guitarists enough time to express themselves.
I think that, to give people another idea, we'll play something else from...
But it's funny. One thing - one thing is funny.  It's only in Congolese Rumba that you have this thing.
I never heard it anywhere else. I've never seen it anywhere.
All right. Well, this is a track which has a great Seben, if I'm allowed to say so. I'm not going to try the pronunciation.
I'll give you to pronounce it for me.  "Nimogne," Zaigo Langa Langa?
Yes.
"Ndonge."
This is another track from Zaiko Langa Langa, it's called "Ndonge." Thank you.
Zaiko Langa Langa there, with a track called "Ndonge."
Something else that you mentioned, Papa Wemba, and we saw it in the video: you know this moment when the Seben
hits, and then all of a sudden we see some of the most incredible dance moves we've ever seen?
A lot of the different bands at the time were coming with their own different moves. As legend
would have it, Pepe Kallé or Kanda Bongoman,
depending on who you talk to, brought the Kwassa Kwassa,
I remember reading that when the moon landing happened there was a dance that swept
Congolese dance halls called The Apollo.
There was even a dance about going bald. Tell us about dancing: the importance
of bringing a new dance to what you guys did?
Actually, in my country, I'd say that when a baby is born, the whole village comes and sings and dances
for the baby. Throughout one's life there are lots of causes for celebration, and dance and music are
always part of that. And also, when you die, music and dance comes back one more time to
accompany the person who just died to their home
so thatit's secure at home. I mentioned the 450 ethnic groups, and each ethnic group has a varra,
a musical varra and a dance.
So dance is incredibly diverse and it's something that could never be taken away.
You can go from North to South, from East to West, even in the centre, and there's an infinity of dance steps.
Each group, when they turn up with a new repertoire, they create a new dance. They always do and they
always have to show a new dance just to get noticed.
Otherwise, you're not going to get noticed. That's where the importance of dance has been in Congolese Rumba
up until now. It's even like that today.
Papa Wemba, what was your favourite dance from this era?
Well, there were so many of them.  I created the Moku Nyon Nyon, the Kabasha,
and lots of others as well.
Could you potentially - if it's not too much to ask - give us a very quick demonstration of it?
I'll play some music.
Oh wow. Just yesterday, when I was a young man, I danced a hell of a lot, but today, as time goes by...
I still try to dance, but it's not what it was.
Can you give us a bit of an idea of what the experience was like in the early '70s,
inside the clubs that you guys were playing at? How long would you guys play for each night?
I get the idea that sometimes that the Seben would just get drawn out for minutes and half-hours
until it was just so hypnotic that dancers would get dizzy and fall over. It was a vibrant time inside night clubs.
Can you paint us a picture of these live shows that you were doing?
Well in early 70s, when we started out with friends, we were still very young and our parents
didn't want us to go out until very late at night.
We were starting to making our records. We started at 2pm and we'd continue making records until 6pm - because
we had to be home by 8pm - and our elders would stay behind because they were all grown up, over 20-years old.
Each group also had their way of playing the Seben. A track could last for 20 minutes,
maybe half an hour.  It depends on the group of musicians and it varies from one group to the next.
I think it's fair to say, as I mentioned the intro, out of all African music, by far the
the music or the nation that's had the biggest musical impact across all of Africa is Congo,
and in particular the guitar playing. That very Congolese style of guitar playing had such
an incredible influence.
Before we move on, as we're running through this history of Congolese music,
we have to mention a guy called Franco, who many would say was the greatest guitar player Africa
has ever known. Just tell us quickly about Franco, and your experiences witnessing him play guitar?
I've always repeated that Congolese music is the mother of African music and has influenced lots of other
African countries. And even now, when you listen to music from countries like Nigeria,
you can find the sounds from Congolese Rumba. Franco was one of the rare singers and guitarists
who really helped to shape that popular guitar sound  He was incredibly successful
and, in fact, his godfather was the very icon of Congolese Rumba. This year, in my country, in my capital city,
we actually built a huge monument to the glory of this man, Franco.
I'll tell you what: technical team, we'll go back to video one right now, because it would be great to show
everyone - just really, really quickly - this video of Franco playing live.
The one thing I wanted to add to that is that this whole thing of the Seben - and this very Congolese
thing of taking these phrases and repeating them over and over again - it's almost like a trance thing.
You go into a trance. And there are modern day Congolese artists (like Konono Number 1)
who had a similar thing. There's this element of hypnotic trance in Congolese music.
Is that something that's deep rooted, do you think?
Well, you could put it like that. You don't necessarily have to. My experience is almost...
this is something that I say to my friends: it was too loud for me. Just recently, I was singing a song
that I had written for my parents that I lost at a very young age, and each time I think of my parents
I feel regret. I wrote this song, where I sing about my parents - my father, my mother - and when I
interpreted this song on stage... I don't know. I guess it's personal,
but I got the impression that my feet weren't on the ground any more. It was as if I was floating in the air,
and that's a form as trance as well. It's falling into a trance and it's something you can't really explain.
I don't know how to define all that to help you understand and convince you that you can also fall into
that trance in different ways. It's not easy to explain.
We'll go to this video right now. This is a video of the most legendary guitar player from Congo, Franco.
Can you remember the first time that you saw Franco live?
At the same time, you can see he's really having fun playing like that. It's visible.
Yes, I was still a kid. I was a young kid when he started his career in the '50s.
The first time I saw him (not just playing live): we actually already knew him because his wife
was a local girl and when he came to see her, we local kids would go and have a look,
just to see what he was like.
We went up to see him - to talk to him, shake hands with him - but our parents didn't let us go to concerts at the time
because we were really young. As I grew up, I became a musician myself and I worked alongside him.
He really helped me. He helped me a great deal and, if I can just mention my own family,
my first daughter was adopted by him. Hee had a lot of money, he was very wealthy,
and his whole family resided in Europe. He actually took my daughter into his family in Europe
for several years, and I'm very grateful to him for that - and even posthumously,
I would like to say "Thank you," because it's thanks to him that my daughter has managed to make a life
for herself here in France. These are things I have to say. He was almost family to me, and someone who was
very well respected, I think it's been just two weeks since this monument of him
was inaugurated in Kinshasa, by the government,
on Place des Artistes, in his honour.
Around this time, the early '70s, Mobutu was very much in power and he wanted to bring in this
ideology called "authenticity," which for many reasons had positive and negative effects. But there were
actually a lot of positive effects that came from authenticity. What was authenticity, Papa Wemba?
It was very good. For me, it was a good thing, actually. He wanted his people to be identifiable
so we rejected Western forms of dress. For example, I couldn't wear a suit and all of that. You had to dress as he
would have liked to. I think that after he travelled to China (he went to meet Chairman Mao at the time),
he came back he promoted this ideology and set up this system of going back to authenticity.
Going back to authenticity didn't mean that you had to reject everything, but you had to be conscious of the fact that
we were a people who had their own culture too: their own way of seeing things, different to the
white man. And that was welcomed because, even abroad, people would point at us when we were wearing a
Western suit.
If you were wearing an Abakost suit, people knew you from Zaire. Everyone knew you from Zaire,
and to me that was, "Well done Mobutu" because he pushed us forward on a worldwide stage and gave us our
own pride. It's thanks to this that musicians and artists became inspired from these 450 ethnic groups
that I mentioned earlier, and that's also what made the very strength of our culture and our music.
That's thanks to Mobutu and, obviously, the artists themselves.
Something that happened around this time as well, which you mentioned before with the suits,
the Abakost suits, that you know - when people saw you guys wearing it?
I'm wearing an Abakost suit today.
People would identify you as coming from Zaire, because obviously the country was now called Zaire.
There was an event that happened, though, that Mobutu put on that, all of a sudden,
the whole world knew about Zaire and what was going on. Obviously it's the thing that we read about
in history books - we read Internet column inches, we see movies about it - and for us we can't get
our heads around it. It just seems like the most incredible thing.
Mobutu staged a boxing event between Mohamed Ali and Goerge Foreman in 1974 called Rumble in the Jungle
and, leading up to that, a music festival called Zaire 74, where he brought James Brown, Bill Withers and BB King
to perform alongside all of the biggest Congolese stars at the time. And you guys, Zaiko Langa Langa
performed at that. So, man - just give us an idea of the feeling and vibe in Kinshasa and Congo,
building up to Rumble in the Jungle and Zaire '74.
Kinshasa had reaching boiling point.  They had welcomed a thousand people from all over the world,
especially the United States.  Kinshasa had set up for all those events. They had put on everything so that
everything would take place in the best possible conditions. For three days, there was this music festival
in the football stadium, full to the brim. There were 120,000 seats, but there were more than 200,000 people
who came to attend the festival and for me, it was the first time that I shook hands with the great
Afro-Cuban singer, Johnny Pacheco. There were other singers as well - BB King,
all of them.  I saw them come to play in Kinshasa and that was thanks to Mobutu's cultural policy.
He wanted to put his country in a new light, which is understandable, too.
And us, Zaiko Langa Langa, we were still very young in '74.  We actually opened the festival.
We were the first to play but they didn't let us play very long - maybe just 45 minutes - and then there was
Franco, and Tabalay played as well, just those three Congolese combos, and then there was foreign bands on after that.
We're going to watch a video right now. This is video number three. This is a little something
taken from Zaire '74,
just to give people an idea. One of the interesting things is that, if anyone has seen the
documentary "Sole Power," an incredible camera crew from United States went there - filmed the whole thing
just so incredibly, they filmed all of the Congolese artists as well - but sadly no one has edited it yet. They've
been talking about it for years - still, to this day. Maybe one day they will put together a documentary of the
Congolese artists, but here's a little excerpt, from Zaire '74.
 
Papa Wemba, obviously,
I was there. My neighbourhood is just behind the stadium. On foot, it took me 15 minutes to get there.
I was there, but that was really late in the night, 1 or 2 in the morning, and I had to be there.
Just how influential was it? I mea,n from what I'm told, that wasn't the first time James Brown
had performed in Zaire, but obviously it was the first time he performed in such a grandiose fashion.
How influential was it for local Congolese artists to see James Brown, if at all?
Well, that wasn't the first time. That was the third time (I think) that he came to play in Kinshasa,
and lots of different artists played in that stadium and lots of music fans from Kinshasa wanted to meet
James Brown. We also wanted to. At the time we called him Cassius Clay, Mohamed Ali:
everyone wanted to shake his hand, everyone wanted to speak to him, everyone wanted to take a picture
with him. Same thing with James Brown. He came three times to Kinshasa and we were happy because we
listened to him. We knew about him already.
Was there an incredible sense of pride after the event with Zaire '74, and did it instil even more
of a fire in Congolese musicians? Like, "Yes, we're doing something, the world is watching,
our music is now, on a global stage"?
It was very welcome for us, and we were very, very proud - really very proud - that the town of Kinshasa
welcomed so many people in such a huge festival. They had brought equipment with them,
You listened to the crowd - it's completely different to the sound of my old recordings at the time.
Completely different. So we were very, very proud and today, because of what we are today, it's thanks to all
those influences, too. The Congolese artists and musicians wanted to move forward
and this actually gave us the strength and the will to do so.
One thing it gave you the strength to do, Papa Wemba, was to (one month after Zaire '74) quit your band,
and decide to go solo.  Why, at the height of Zaiko Langa Langa and one month after you performed at Zaire '74,
did you decide to quit and pursue a solo career?
It's true that when you live with friends there will be small worries - problems between friends -
and then suddenly I thought, "I've got to do things by myself." I'd wanted to do that for a long time,
and this solo career was welcomed. I was very lucky.
I was lucky enough to travel all over the world and lucky enough to become what I've become today
thanks to my solo career, and I really do thank God to give me this call to follow. I thank myself, too,
because I didn't just stay there and do nothing. I've worked on going back to Kinshasa.
Tonight, I'm going on the tour that's going to last (I think) 21 days, in three different countries.
I'm 66-years old and I still work as I did a long time ago - and I still love it.
I think the incredible thing with you, Papa Wemba, is we could sit here and have this conversation for like three
days straight and still be entertained, but unfortunately I've got to keep it to a couple of hours
so, moving ahead in time a little bit. You quit Zaiko Langa Langa, you established a group called
Isifi Lokole, and had some great success with that and some other projects, but really this next chapter,
this next really big chapter in the history of Papa Wemba, was the forming of the beginning of
Viva la Musica. I think we're going to watch a video right now. This is video number four, which is
Viva la Musica on a TV show in Congo at some point in the '70s - and it's a really, really beautiful video for a
number of reasons. You'll see why. We're going to watch it for a bit,
because as the video progresses some really magic stuff happens. Here we go.
Such amazing dancing, by the way. What was the name of that dance?
That was the Moku Nyon Nyon that I gave you a demonstration of just now.
Good to see it in action.  Look, there are a couple of amazing observations in watching that video. One of the
reasons why I wanted to play it - I think that video was filmed around '76 or '77, but to give people an idea:
at this point you were the biggest star in Congolese music, and especially with young people.
As we saw in that video, you've just got the young people of Congo - of Kinshasa, I'm assuming that's where
that was filmed - mobbing you mid-performance.  Tell us about this time. What do you think was about the music
that you made that particularly resonated with the young people of Congo?
When I started my solo career, I split up with my friends from Zaiko Langa Langa and decided to strike out on
my own.
I made a lot of young people dream, because I brought them hope in their life. I said "Well, the sun that
shines doesn't just shine for some people, it shines for everybody. That is the luck that we have, that God
gave us, and we must seize that chance."
And as I wanted to break out of the ordinary, I brought lots of things. I made young people dream
about the way that they would hold themselves, that they would dress, the way they would be elegant.
By that I mean make sure that you have the right hair style, are clean shaven, and smell nice, because you mustn't smell bad
or have bad smells within you. It's all these things that made the youth accept me, and lots of them actually
followed that example. That's what made me someone who was a bit different from the rest.
And it's through my teachings, if I can say that, that I became what I am.
Well, look. I think you're getting us to a point in your career which we'll go into quite a bit very soon,
because it's incredibly interesting, but before we move into that, I just want to ask quickly about Molokai.
You started - I guess it was a community, like a village within a building, called Molokai.
I'm assuming it was maybe similar to what Fela Kuti did in Lagos, with Kalakuta Republic?
That's good what you said. You mentioned Fela Kuti.
At one time, there was a big festival in Lagos and we asked a great Congolese singer, Tabalay, to form a band,
but unfortunately I wasn't included in that band. I wasn't recruited. There was a friend of mine who was
part of that delegation who went to the festival in Lagos, Nigeria, and when she came back she talked to me
about Fela. She talked to me about him by saying, "We met this singer over there, this Nigerian singer,
who really is extraordinary: who doesn't want to follow the policy in his country, and he actually created a
republic within the republic; the republic of Kalakuta." When Mobutu asked us to, we promoted authenticity.
That's when those ideas came back to me. In the late '50s, in the town of Kinshasa, there wasn't a single cinema.
There wasn't one. There was this priest who would walk around with a screen, from neighborhood to
neighborhood, to host open-air film screenings, and he came to my neighborhood and showed a film that
took place on the island of Molokai. The star was a Jesuit priest, Father Damien, and his mission was to heal
people who had leprosy. After the screening of this film, the elders in my neighbourhood
called our neighbourhood Molokai.
Looking back over those years, I said, "Hey, in the late '50s, this neighborhood's elders called it Molokai,
so why can't I use this name?" I wanted to call it The Republic of Molokai, and I thought, "Maybe
I'm going to have a few worries with the politicians in my country,
but I'm going to try and stay in keeping with Mobutu's authenticity." I called my village Molokai
and it brought me good luck.
It's quite tricky/ It's quite hard to understand if you haven't experienced this.
It's very difficult to help you understand what I'm saying.
What sort of things happened at Molokai? what kind of people found themselves there?
I understand that you, as we saw in that video, you had a massive following with the youth.
The youth of Congo were most certainly on your side and I believe that in Molokai, a lot of young people who didn't
have parents found their way into Molokai.
Tell us a little bit about what kind of activities would happen in Molokai?
Actually, Molokai is my family land. This is where I grew up with my parents. This is where my parents died.
I stayed there as the only master on board the ship, of this tract of land, which is called Molokai village.
I'm going to tell you some stories that may be difficult to understand, but this Molokai village is a
modern village in the heart of a huge, working class neighbourhood of Kinshasa, which is the capital of
Democratic Republic of Congo.  In that village, in that neighbourhood, there was lots of tourists who
came just to the village, to the tribal chief of Molokai village (that's me). I would receive tourists from Japan,
from Europe, and tourists from other African countries - and the Molokai village, it's a renamed Molokai,
was replicated in several towns.
There's a night club called Molokai in Washington. In Tokyo, there's a group of musicians called Molokai.
In Libreville, the capital of Gabon, there's also a place called Molokai village, and that's down to me basically.
So us Africans, we say, "Big man is not the small one." So I'm a big one I guess.
Okay. Something that you brought up before in reference to the young people of Congo certainly being on
your side. These kinds of things that you instilled in them - having pride in your
appearance, the art of dressing well, making sure you're well groomed, that you smell good, that you have good clean
underwear on, all of these things - you managed to turn into a cultural artform which then turned into a cultural
movement. As I said in the introduction, I'm sure a few people in this room are familiar with Le Sap.
About 5 or 6 years ago there was an Italian photographer, Daniel somebody - I forget his name, sorry
Daniel, if you ever watch this - who went to Brazzaville and took a whole lot of photos. There have been other
photographers that went to Kinshasa - there was a Guiness ad, even - but Le Sap has been, you know, we've
managed to see it on the Internet.
It's got historical roots but what know now as Le Sap, and the Sapeur, was
actually founded by - or helped to be founded by - this man Papa Wemba.  We have some images, little
images that we'll put up on the screen just to give people an idea, but while you look at those images,
Papa Wemba, how did Le Sap come about and what does it stand for?
 
At home on Sundays - every Sunday, in each family, in each Christian family - we would dress up and
we'd try and look as elegant as possible. Father and mother might wear traditional African clothing to go to
church, and the children would put on their best clothes. Towards the '70s, when we started our musical
career, there was a group of youth from Brazzaville who came to take part in clothing battles in Kinshasa.
They would dress as well as possible, and we repeated that when we came to Paris in towards 1980.
Quite near where we are now, actually, at Bonne Nouvelle Metro station. There was a night club called the REX,
which still exists, and that's where it all started.  That's where it all began with clothing, and Sap duels
between people from Kinshasa and people from Brazzaville.  These Congolese are from Brazzaville. This is the
way they dress. And these ones are from Kinshasa.
They like a more relaxed style of clothing.  And we used to be criticized for this. Our parents didn't like it, but
today, everyone says that they're Sapeur in their own way and it spreads all over the place. That's it.
So Papa Wemba. Because you created an ideology, almost, with LeSap,
in the late 70s.
It's a whole ideology.
You had a religion. Tell us about Kitende.
I'm not the creator of the project, but I'm the person who took part in the launching of this ideology.
I really can't say that I'm the person who invented this form. I was helped by my colleague at the time.
There was Black Big Mac, the film that was successful in France, and that features Le Sap and that really helped
promote it too. I really do regret that Bisou, is dead now. He was a great French journalist
and he also did a lot for Le Sap here in Paris.
What was Kitende?
Kitende means "cloth" in Kikongo. It's a language which is from my homeland, too, so basically "cloth."
And is it true that back then there was a sapeur hymn that you would sing that,
depending on who was the fashion house at the time, was the particular choice
of the sapeur would be put in the hymn?
Yes, of course. It was our way of showing off what we had and what we were wearing at the time.
It's true that when we came here to Europe - especially to Belgium, also France - we understood that
great fashion houses existed. There were people like Valentino, Francesco Smalto, Jeanfranco Ferrer,
and what we liked even more were Japanese designers and French fashion designers as well.
Italians, too. British, not so much.
Can you remember how the hymn went?
But the thing is that it wasn't just about the clothing. Obviously the clothing was a very big part
of it, but there were 10 commandments as well. You had your own 10 commandments,
and one of them was like "eight different ways of how a sapeur must walk"?
But all of that was part of a whole movement.  You had to know how to walk and you had to have the right
deportment. You had to dress properly. You have to behave properly. This whole ideology came through me and
the Molokai village, too. I was enormously lucky. That's why in Africa we say, "A great man is not a small one."
You talked a bit before about this moment when you first came to Paris, and
considering the history and the relationship between the Republic of Congo and the
Democratic Republic of Congo, then Zaire, and France and Belgium, there's so much of
your culture, so much around you, the language that you speak is French, you finally made it to Paris in 1977,
I believe. What was that experience like - finally getting on a plane and landing in Paris?
Oh my God. It's true that taking the plane was not accessible to everyone at the time, and when I arrived
in Brussels for th first time - because that's the first town that we landed in - all I can say is that I
was very angry. I thought, "How can a country like this - a town like this, which is so beautiful - have light
everywhere? There's no light in Kinshasa." I knew that things weren't as simple as that, but coming to Paris, "The
City of Light" at the time... there are other great towns obviously. Tokyo, LA - there are so many towns
across around, from the world that had become amazing. But originally everyone wanted to go to Paris.
Everyone wanted to visit Paris. There was a saying, "See Paris, and die."
It obviously influenced you a lot to the point where, you know, you started spending more and more
time in Paris.
As the '80s are coming along, and things back home are a little bit more
politically chaotic, give us an idea of what was happening in Zaire at the time and what were
your decisions behind spending more time in France?
Well, actually, it wasn't a question of politics for me.
I want to tell you my story with my wife.  We had decided, the two of us, and our children, to come and
raise our children in France. That our children should have a French education.
And that's what we did. We left our country in the mid '80s, '86. We decided to come and settle here.
My daughter, in the room: I think she was born 10-15 years after the day that we
actually came to France.
It wasn't so much a political question, because I am a citizen of a country and I have the right,
it's my duty, and up until then... I'm going to show you my passport. I've always got my Congolese
passport with me. I'm proud to be Congolese and I will stay Congolese until the day I die.
I came to settle here because I wanted to go further in my career, I wanted to raise my children
in another way, and also God had gave me enough means to come and live here in France.
When you arrived and when you made it,
And also: I'd like to thank France because France also allowed me to explore the whole world.
France allowed me to go all over the place.
And for my experience, my life experience, I really would like to thank France.
I don't want to get into too much detail, but it's a country that has helped me a great deal.
I think that leads perfectly to the next video. This is video number 5, technical team.
You talked about moving to Paris. Obviously it gave you a gateway to the world - because you
know there aren't regular flights going Kinshasa LA, Kinshasa Tokyo, Kinshasa anywhere - so being in
Paris gave you the opportunity to take the music of Congo to the world and it must have been a really,
really exciting time. I think in the mid '80s, thanks to yourself, Zaiko must be noted
kept on going - and I think Zaiko Langa Langa, they're still going now - but Zaiko managed to travel as
well, but this great moment when Congolese music was being received really well throughout the
world, and this video we're going to watch right now, is Papa Wemba live in Tokyo, 1986.
Can you remember the first time you went to Tokyo? Obviously you mentioned before that there's
a poor side of Papa Wemba, but Comme de Garcons and these big Japanese
fashion houses were your favourites. Was it a wild experience, going to Japan for the first time?
Yes, absolutely. I didn't go by myself. I brought my wife with me and one of my children -
her big sister, because she wasn't born yet - and I think the flight was 12 hours. That was incredible.
We'd never done that before. My wife was exhausted-  and me, too - and when we turned up, what with the jetlag,
we weren't actually tired any more at night fall because of the time difference. In Tokyo, well, it's
true that when you travel you discover lots of things that you've never seen before, and I discovered all
these things with Japanese people who really stay loyal to me, and stayed with me because I stayed to
work with them for several years. I was also lucky enough to go on tour in Japan. That lasted
for three months. I was with them in Japan for three months, and it was part of my job,
but I was also lucky to do that before everyone else.
All right. Let's watch this video, then. This is Papa Wemba live in Tokyo, 1986.
Did you ever think in those early moments, in your career in the '60s, when you started
Zaiko Langa Langa, when you grow up in a city like Kinshasa... obviously you guys had this big idea
of yourselves as The Beatles, but did you ever... is it very difficult for a musician in Kinshasa to imagine
himself in a few decades time, playing soukous in Japan and taking Congolese music to the world?
Well, you can't count your chickens before they hatch. It's so difficult. Life is built like that.
There are highs and lows, ups and downs, but I was so determined and I trusted myself.
I knew that I was going to take that music very far and also - with my voice, with my songs,
with my music - I had this feeling within me.
I was talking about my 66th birthday. I'm still upright. I still get up on stage. I can still stay like that
for two or three hours and I don't feel tired afterwards. It's because I love what I do.
One thing that happened throughout the 80s with your music was that you definitely made a
conscious effort to produce two sides - or two kinds - of music. There were two sides to what you did.
Music for African listeners, and music for European listeners. I'd just like to know this quickly,
just talk us through very much making a determined effort to take soukous to
Europe and the world, but somehow in a way that was a little bit easier for them to digest?
When I first started singing, before I was successful, I would spend time with friends because
my father wasn't rich enough to buy me vinyl records. I would go to my friends house to listen to
songs from abroad and that's when I began to take all that information in. Once in my career,
I had this bag full of information (musically speaking), I began to take some things out of that bag,
and then I decided to come and set up shop in France.  I met Martin Meissonnier and when he saw me
and my band Viva la Musica, he said, looking at me right in the eyes, "What you do is good, but it
won't work here."
"Please let me create a group for you with other African musicians who are going to make another style
of music, but keep your old group as well." That's when I started to play with two different groups.
With my Congolese Rumba group and with this other group which at the time, which was always
called The Molokai Group. I knew that Martin Meissonnier set up world music here in France
and everything started with this man.  He is actually the man who encouraged me to play in another style.
We'll just listen to a track - quickly right now. This is a track called "Mandola," which was released by
Real World - which is, if anyone knows, Peter Gabriel's label to promote music of the world
throughout the '90s.
How did you meet Peter Gabriel and  - well, we'll play this track first and then we'll talk about that, after this.
This is Papa Wemba with "Mandola."
So, something from the mid '90s. That was Papa Wemba, with a track called "Mandola."
Tell us a bit about that track. At this stage you kind of found yourself in
a position of that dream that you wanted. You were signed to Peter Gabriel's Real World,
which was the label that really was taking music of the world to the world.
How did the meeting come about with Peter Gabriel?
Well, Peter Gabriel knew me. He had heard of me before and he was looking for voices from around the world.
I wasn't the only person. There were also singers like Yousou Ndour, other African singers, and also
European singers who were on his label, Real World. The Worldwide Festival took us
just about everywhere. I was part of the staple of festival singers, and when he did his world tour,
he called me, and for several months we went all around the United States together with him - and also
Europe, the whole of Europe with him. That's where it happened. I didn't contact Peter Gabriel,
he came to me. He heard of the singer that I was and he really wanted me to work with him.
And we're still in touch. We still get on.
Going back to what you were saying before, Papa Wemba: you were very, very
determined at this point in time to take your music to the world, and I just wanted to
ask the question... because I think that at some point, like with a lot of producers and a lot of people
in this room, as your profile builds and you build a core audience - and now you had a core
audience, a very big core audience, back in Congo - you wanted to take your music
in different directions.
How do the Congolese people react to your new directions? I guess the proper question was,
how do you go on your directions and still keep your loyal fan base happy?
Well, everyone loves a singer. Musical genres are all good and well, but it's the singer that's the focus.
Everyone knew what my musical standpoint was.
Everyone knew that I didn't just look at what was right in front of me.
In my country, I already diversified my repertoire. I would go from one style to another and I wasn't
just limited to Rumba, because I am also a singer who knows how to interpret.
I was taught to interpret. I was taught that I had to know how to sing other people's music.
You start off by interpreting very faithfully, and then you can go wherever you like.
So my fans like me as I am, with those different styles of music. It's not a problem for me,
and it's not a problem for them either, and that's my strength, I think.
In terms of talking about your career, a few years later, there was an
incident that occurred in 2003 which I think that some people that live in the French speaking world
would know about... but off the back of that... I'll get you to talk about it as you feel,
but that experience. You know you discovered some new faith and it took your music in a new direction.
Tell us about this experience?
Well, as an African, I interpret things in my way because when God wants to do God's work,
he works with the people that he has chosen.
That's how I feel things. That's how I understand what happened.  I was in my prison cell, all alone,
and I was visited - seriously. I was genuinely visited by a foreign being. It's the sensation that I
had and that's what I believe happened, and when I came out of where I was, I said to myself, "The first
house I will enter will be his home." So I went to a church to thank God for helping me out and
allowing me to leave the place I was in.  But I am and was brought up in a
Christian Catholic household, and I believe in God and the Catholic faith.
In terms of that experience shaping you and you finding yourself walking down this
new path, how did that effect the way that you looked at, say, for example, Le Sap?
At this time you were still very much one of the spiritual leaders of Sapeur, and
walking down this new path which was viewed a somewhat materialistic life,
were these two new ideas, new two philosophies, in conflict for you?
Well, actually, no one really undertook this new standpoint. I didn't give anything up. I had nothing to
give up. When you believe in God, you don't just do things halfway. You go all the way with him.
But I didn't give up Le Sap. That has nothing to do with it.
I didn't give up songs that I wrote for a woman, or songs that I wrote when I was sad. I'm not going
to change my whole song book and just sing hymns to the glory of God because God is permanent.
He's everywhere.
I never made a pact with Satan or anything like that. I mean, Satan didn't exist to me before
and Satan has never been on my side, so people didn't really understand where I was coming from
when I said, "Well, I'm going to start off singing for God. I wasn't singing for the devil before."
I think we've got for a few more and then we'll throw it over to everyone for questions,
but I think this kind of brings us to a modern day point.  So we'll play this last video,
this is video number 6, which is a live performance from Papa Wemba from more recent times.
Papa Wemba, that's one amazing coat.
Well, it was loaned to me. I borrowed it for that stage.  Francesco Smalto lent it to me.
Okay, look. I'm going to throw it over to these guys very, very soon, but I guess one of the last questions
that I've got for you is... particularly when you think about the Congo, and I kind of touched on this,
the history books will tell you that it's suffered a very harsh colonial rule at the hands of
the Belgians moreso than... well, it was just a very, very unhappy, awful, tumultuous time.
As independence came - political upheaval, civil wars - the Congo, almost more than any
other country on the face of the Earth, has had it really, really hard for a long, long time. But somehow,
during and through all of this, they've managed to produce some of the most joyous and rousing
dance music the world has ever known, and that the continent of Africa has especially known.
Why is that? How do you think that is?
We're going to have to talk about politics again.  I'm going to talk about Sarkozy, when he came on an
official visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I wasn't that interested when he said that "You Congolese, you have to know how to
share your riches with your neighbors."
That's when we didn't get it at all.  That basically meant that there was something going on.
North - South politics are always dominated by the North, but luckily we have our music and
are a people who loves music: who love being open, independent, free;
if you come to Kinshasa, you'll to understand what I'm saying to you here and now.
Music is permanent. It's in every single neighborhood, very loudly. There are people playing music
absolutely everywhere.
You don't even need tranquillity. We don't even need our neighbors to keep quiet - even at 10pm,
midnight, 1am. There's still all this incredibly loud music and that is our pride,
and our strength.
That's our strength because not everyone takes care of politics.
You know there are people who take care of their other interests, but the West - they know
why they've always wanted to get their hands on this country. It's because of what's in the ground.
It's a very rich country in terms of natural resources - an incredibly rich country - and that clouds the
vision of all these people who come and lecture us and tell us what to do. That's what
they're doing, basically. They're moralising and all we do is put up with it, because we have no choice.
But maybe one day we'll have complete independence, and we will manage to live with our riches
without any foreign people trying to control us.  We don't know, I don't know.
Just this morning on TV I saw Sarkozy visited Putin. I mean - all of that is politics, and where does
that bring us? All of that? We don't know where the world is going. The only one thing that I do
know, is that the holy book, the Bible, says that until you begin to experience things that you have never
experienced before, it won't be the end. But you have to be very careful and us Africans
really do believe that. We are very vigilant.  If you as Europeans get distracted, that's up to you.
Are there any questions for Papa Wemba at this point?
Okay. Papa Wemba, you're flying out tonight. You're being presented with an award by UNESCO.
Can you just tell us quickly what the award is?
Tomorrow evening, I'll be promoted to an ambassador for peace by UNESCO.
