Lokua Kanza

Pascal Lokua Kanza (born April 1958), known professionally as Lokua Kanza, is a Congolese singer, songwriter, arranger, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. He is known for his soulful, folksy sound, which is atypical of the dancefloor-friendly African rumba music that is common in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His proficiency in blending different musical styles and cultural influences has made him a celebrated artist, admired for his distinctive and evocative musical creations. He sings in French, Swahili, Lingala, Portuguese, English, and Wolof. He was a coach in The Voice Afrique Francophone in 2016 and 2017.

Lokua Kanza was born Pascal Lokua Kanza in Bukavu in the South Kivu Province, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is the eldest of eight children, with a Mongo father and a Tutsi mother from Rwanda. In 1964, the family went to live in Kinshasa in a middle class area, until the day when Pascal's father, a ship's captain, died. His mother then moved to a much poorer area of the city, and Pascal had to work to feed the family as well as singing in churches.

Throughout his life in Kinshasa, Kanza received his education under his father's guidance at the National Institute of Arts (l'Institut National des Arts), which served as a hub for nurturing and training performance artists in Kinshasa, where he honed his skills. In 1977, musicologists Gerhard Kubik and Donald Kachamba visited him and his classmate, Magongo Sanga, at the institute. They learned that Pascal's father had amassed a collection of 78 rpm records since 1948, which greatly influenced Kanza's dexterity on the guitar and his vocal harmonies in the local ecclesiastical chorales.

After completing his secondary studies, he joined Abeti Masikini's band Les Redoutables as a guitarist in 1980. During this time, a decree promulgated by President Mobutu Sese Seko mandated that Pascal abandon his forename, Pascal, and simply go by "Lokua Kanza". Later, he moved to Ivory Coast and became a singer for the Best Orchestra of the Hôtel Ivoire in Abidjan, a typical African ensemble often associated with hostelries and culinary establishments. The ensemble's repertoire includes a medley of Anglo-Saxon covers and renowned African compositions. In 1984, he relocated to Paris to advance his musical career. He enrolled in the CIM, Paris prominent operational base for Jazz and contemporary music, and fostered synergies with stars from the West Indies like Jean-Michel Cabrimol and his group the Mafia, as well as Francky Vincent. He had two significant encounters with renowned figures in African music, establishing himself as an active member of the Parisian world music scene in the 1980s. ...

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