ARCHIVES 2017 / BASOKIN

At once danceable and hypnotic, the music of Basokin comes from far away, rooted in a traditional society that has little to do with our modern cities. Yet a constant electric surge goes through it, that of distorted guitars, of saturated microphones, of heavy bass guitars. Basokin is first and foremost an aural experience, but also a visual shock, with its dancers whose bodies are covered in white marks, performing what might be a ritual or a popular African dance... Basokin is a child of Kinshasa, that sprawling, chaotic city, in whose polyglot racket each community remains strongly attached to its identity... Basokin tells of an unexpected Africa, at once mysterious and hedonistic, ancient and modern. With its traditional drums and its rock'n'roll energy, with its savannah rhythms and its urban textures, Basokin is an ambassador of this mutant Africa.

Basokin
Basokin was born within the diaspora of the natives of Kasai-Oriental in Kinshasa and, in time, made its place among the best bands “in exile” in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Several of its members, including guitarist and spokesman Mopera, are also part of Kasai Allstars, a supergroup considered to be one of the flagbearers of the Congolese tradi-modern movement, along with Konono n°1, whose Congotronics has grown in popularity these past few years. From the music of pre-colonial savannah to the sophistication of jazz and the electronic music of the rich neighbourhoods of African metropoles, their influences are many and — most importantly — unpredictable. Can we only imagine how communities with incredibly diverse cultures and languages converged on Kinshasa after the end of the Belgian Congo to create a melting pot that defies history? The tradi-modern sound of Congolese musicians, which reached Europe about a dozen years ago, is but one example: at once an aesthetic and a geopolitical shock — an incredible maelstrom of continuity and rupture.