Music of the Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo's homegrown pop music, soukous, is popular across the border, and musicians from both countries have fluidly travelled throughout the region playing similarly styled music, including Nino Malapet and Jean Serge Essous.

Brazzaville had a major music scene until unrest in the late 1990s, and produced popular bands like Extra Musica and Bantous de la Capitale that played an integral role in the development of soukous and other styles of Congolese popular music [1].

The words were written by Jacques Tondra and Georges Kibanghi, the music was composed by Jean Royer and Joseph Spadilière.

Though soukous has become much more closely associated with the popular music of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, early in the style's evolution both the local scenes of Kinshasa and Brazzaville played a very important role.

Soukous arose from this fusion of styles, popularized as dance music by a number of different orchestras in the 1950s and 60s.