The Comedy of Errors: Viva La Musica - Impression (6 June 1992)

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The phrase “The Godfather(s) of...” gets applied to all manner of people across the different genres of popular music. So much so that it’s virtually become a cliche. Even Peel wasn’t averse to bowdlerising the label when he wanted to praise artists that he regarded as pioneers in their genre.
In the case of Papa Wemba though and his influence and standing in the field of African music, no other label will do.  He was in at the start with one of the most formative Congolese soukous groups, Zaiko Langa Langa and was the driving force behind one of the movement’s best known groups, Viva La Musica.  He led the way in the pilgrimage that African musicians made to Paris and at one point was operating variants of Viva La Musica both in Africa and Europe, so as to cater for both audiences - the belief being that in Africa, soukous music should pay greater acknowledgement towards God then was perhaps expected in Europe.
Wemba operated a commune in Paris and offered support to musicians making their way out to Europe for the first time.  Viva La Musica operated both as his backing band but also as a sort of supergroup - bigger in scale than the likes of Loketo, Matchacha et al - as evidenced on Impression by the multiple vocalists taking lines and then coming together to such brilliant effect ahead of the play out.  Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find out when Impression dates from, what I do know is that it is musically timeless.

Video courtesy of killero72