Papa Wemba

Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba (14 June 1949 – 24 April 2016), known professionally as Papa Wemba, was a Congolese singer, songwriter, bandleader, and actor who is credited with popularizing Congolese rumba and African popular music internationally. Through his music and fashion, he influenced contemporary Congolese fashion, and was a central figure in the rise of La Sape in Paris. Dubbed the "King of Rumba", Wemba is often regarded as one of Africa's greatest vocalists and performers. Raised in a household where his mother worked as a professional mourning singer, he made his public debut in Kinshasa in the late 1960s and first rose to prominence as a founding member of Zaïko Langa Langa. With its stripped-down instrumentation and urban aesthetic, Zaïko forged a new musical style of Congolese rumba. Wemba's crystalline tenor, dancing, and fashion sense soon established him as one of Zaïko's principal vocalists. After internal disputes, he co-founded two short-lived but influential groups: Isifi Lokole, which incorporated lokole percussion, and Yoka Lokole. His emergence as a bandleader began in 1977, when he founded Viva La Musica, which quickly became a fixture of the Kinshasa and Paris music scenes and served as a launching pad for many of Congolese music's future leading performers. In 1987, Wemba began pursuing an international career. Based between Kinshasa and Paris, he emerged as a prominent world music artist and later signed with Peter Gabriel's Real World Records. His internationally released albums, most notably Papa Wemba (1988), Le Voyageur (1992), Emotion (1995), and Molokaï (1998), helped introduce Congolese rumba to Western audiences through a synthesis of rumba, pop, and world music. Wemba's tenor voice and stage presence helped make him one of the first African artists to achieve broad crossover success in Europe, North America, and Japan. In 2003, he was detained in...