Kolinga
Videos
About
“I wanted to talk about what I know best, which is my life” says Rébecca M’Boungou of Kolinga, but on the new album Legacy, out Sept. 02.2022 on Underdog Records, she tells so much more about the upheavals, the glamor, the melancholy, the joy and the pain of our century than about the musical journey of a dark-skinned girl from the southwestern French province who sings in French, English and Lingala and shapes her music from pop, Congolese rumba, jazz, soul, chanson and hip-hop.
Kolinga’s sensual, elegant music is nourished from a thousand sources, her voice revealing the disjointedness of an artist who, at barely thirty, has become the voice of a virtuoso collective. The new album tells of polyphonic identity, of the ghosts of history and the uprooted present, of memories that one pursues and the others from which one flees. In Rébecca’s life, music was always natural, because it united her parents. Her father is Angélou Chevauchet, a singer from Brazzaville with a distinctive high voice, and her mother is Claudie Escalé-Mbemba, the first white woman to be accepted into the Congolese National Ballet. In Congo, the two are stars, but fate decides otherwise.
Rébecca is born in southwestern France, where her single mother gives lessons in African dance. The little girl learns quickly and eventually gives lessons herself. She sees her father from time to time, but he does not teach her his language or his culture. She discovers Brazzaville when she is twelve: “I encountered so many emotions and so much information that I can’t remember anything from that trip.” But she returns regularly and also gives her first concert there with the band FB Star. As the daughter of two artists, she prefers to learn a “real” profession and also pursues this desire first with her studies in audiovisual media.
In 2014, Rébecca met the multi-instrumentalist Arnaud Estor, the two form Kolinga, which in Lingala means both “to connect” and “to encircle” in terms of relationships, inclusion and more. First compositions are created, first duo concerts with loopers follow and with Earthquake a first album is also released in 2016.
Then a long cherished wish comes true – the duo becomes a sextet with which the music can go higher, further and deeper: Drummer, pianist and multi-instrumentalist Jérôme Martineau-Ricotti, Nicolas Martin (bass), Jérémie Poirier-Quinot (keyboards, flute) and Vianney Desplantes (euphonium, Flugabone). In their collective experience, the musicians have played with Magma, the Arts Florissants, the Old School Funky Family, Jay-Jay Johanson, the ensemble 2e2m or Cirque Bidon, among others – a true polyphonic encyclopedia of rigor and freedom.
In 2021, despite lockdowns, Kolinga plays thirty concerts as a sextet and records the new album at the same time. A first single called “Mama (Don’t Let Me)” was released in May. The animated video tells the story of a child with parents of different skin colors who is raised by her single mother. Rébecca wrote the script for it.
Press
“”Legacy” is a record that deals with the complexity of personal identity and the euphoria that comes from a feeling of belonging as well as the melancholy and weight of constant alienation. “Legacy” bears this burden. But accompanied by six musicians, […] it does not feel as heavy anymore. A record that excels in and beyond its musical range.”
– Nothing But Hope And Passion, DE
“Rébecca Mboungou combines soul and chanson with highlife and Afrobeat. An album that tells of how enriching it can be to grow up with two cultures.”
– SWR 2, DE (“Tandem” Album of the Week)
“The dark piano chords in the intro are almost reminiscent of Nina Simone, a worthy prelude to a grandiose work…. Each piece a small and large world in itself in this sound globalized in the best sense. An Afro music of the future.”
– Jazzthing, DE
„Legacy is a moving journey into the space between cultures.“
– Jazzethik, DE