Empompo Loway

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Empompo "Deyesse" Loway, was a Congolese soukous recording artist, composer and saxophonist. He was a member of the soukous band TPOK Jazz, led by Franco Luambo, which dominated the Congolese music scene from the 1950s through the 1980s. [1]

Contents

Career

He helped Congolese singer M'Pongo Love early in her career by arranging her music and recruiting a wealthy patron to fund her work. [2] He split up with M'Pongo in the mid-1980 and focused on developing another young Congolese singer, Vonga Ndayimba, known professionally as Vonga Aye and a backing band for her known as Elo Music. [3] Early in 1981 he recorded a number of songs in Benin with guitarist Dr Nico Kasanda. [4] When Nico left Tabu Ley's Orchestre Afrisa International in the middle of 1981, Empompo asked Nico to collaborate on some of his projects. [3] Empompo together with Vonga Aye, Nico and 3 other musicians from Elo Music spent a month in Paris recording at the end of 1981. [3] According to Empompo, they recorded enough material for six albums, but only two were released, both under Vonga Aye's name. [3]

In 1983, in Kinshasa, Empompo and his friend from TPOK Jazz, Sam Mangwana, together with singer Ndombe Opertun, who had recently left TPOK Jazz, formed the band Tiers Monde Coopération. The band was reformed a few years later as Tiers Monde Révolution. [5]

He died on 21 January 1990. [6] Ken Braun, head of Sterns Music's in the U.S., [7] described Empompo Loway together with Modero Mekanisi as "the best Congolese saxophonists of the [20th] century". [8]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Michel Boyibanda Was A Member of TPOK Jazz In The 1970s Archived February 26, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ "M'Pongo Love". Rumba on the River. Gary Stewart. 2011. Archived from the original on 2012-04-08.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Stewart, p. 295
  4. ↑ Stewart, p. 294
  5. ↑ Stewart, p. 280
  6. ↑ Stewart, p. 370
  7. ↑ "Out of Africa, Passionately Packaged". The New York Times. 18 May 2008.
  8. ↑ Ken Braun. "Tabu Ley Rochereau". World Music. National Geographic. Archived from the original on 2011-01-03.

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References


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