Asante sana, Banning! Viva Afropop!
http://www.afropop.org/news_flash.php?ID=632Samba Mapangala sings for the mountain gorillas of Virunga
....
Congolese singer and bandleader Samba Mapangala has a
special knack for making creative connections between his wandering
life in music and world events. He left Congo in
the 1970s and made his name with Orchestre Virunga in Kenya, where
being a musician from Congo had special caché. Mapangala’s
fabulous Swahili rumba took him around East Africa and Europe in the
years to come, and eventually to the USA, where his Kenyan
connection—and a fine composition celebrating the candidacy of Barack
Obama—earned him a gig at a classy inaugural ball in Washington in
January, 2009. ....
Virunga
is the name of a volcano in eastern Congo, and also the Virunga
National Park, home to a population of mountain gorillas whose lives
have been endangered by the ongoing civil war in the region. In
September, 2009, Mapangala and his current band reworked one of his
classic songs into a new composition to raise awareness about these
awesome, endangered creatures. Recorded in
partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, “Les Gorilles” is a crisp,
elegant rumba with an important and soulful message. ....