Now let me get going with another song from Bella Bella. This song is no like other songs that I have heard from this band. This band can be somewhat a great old legend band that came on this earth.
Bella Bella made a great song that stands out. The song that I am talking is the song called Zamba Zamba. This song is something that I have always found some value in hearing. Soki Vangu is someone who knew how to make some great masterpieces. This song is one of them. After all, he composed this great song.
This song has some excellent singing. Zamba Zamba means Bush Bush. Soki Vangu is singing about being part of a bush and how a bush can bring some refreshment to this society. Later on, Soki Vangu sings the known music genre MAKOSSA. What is Makossa if you wonder. Well it is a genre that was created by former African Jazz saxophonist Manu Dibango. Soki Vangu really loved that genre quite a bit. The great sebene and great bass playing by Shaba Kahamba made this song so unique.
I would argue that this actually Bella Bella's best song that we have seen for a long time. This is the record that made Soki Vangu, SOKI VANGU.
I have been looking a bit more now into the band that my dad loves a lot and I have come to sort of like. I am speaking of the band Bella Bella. This band had two brothers. They were the Soki Brothers.
I am going to focus on one man that I considered to be the most valuable member of Bella Bella and the one I said had leadership of Bella Bella this time and i felt that was really the responsible Soki and the better singer to me. No, I will not focus on Soki Diazenza. This man actually gave some help towards two great Zaire stars Nyboma and Pepe Kalle. I am going to give my own analysis on Maxime Soki better known as Soki Vangu.
Why Soki Vangu? He is my favorite Bella Bella character. Also, I had thought that Soki Vangu was Madilu System. Also I was always charmed by how Soki Vangu sang.
I already a post about Bella Bella (). I will not speak everything on Soki Vangu too much since I sort of talk about that on the Bella Bella.
Now I am giving my opinion on Soki Vangu.
What I see in Soki Vangu was a responsible man who wanted to make proper music and was a always a team player. Soki Vangu could have really done his own thing but he liked to have people around him to enhance his great talent. For example, Soki Vangu getting Diasi Kadi, Pangon Mananga, and Shaba Kahamba were musicians that helped complement Soki Vangu as well as his erratic kid Soki Diazenza. One good example was the song Horoscope. This song showcased Soki Vangu's greatness with the help of Pangon Mananga, and Diazenza's wild voice led the song to be so classic and Soki Vangu was able to be more creative.
Another thing about him was that he was a family man. He wanted to sing with his family and he was close with his young brother Soki Diazenza that they had a thing for music which led the formation of Bella Bella. No matter how erratic his brother was, Soki Vangu always wanted his brother to comeback to him and he sometimes got his luck. Because of that, Soki Vangu would be able to sing some great songs with Soki Diazenza. Also he made a song about his daughter. That song was called Petite Zizina meaning Little Zizina, Soki tells his daughter to grow up and understand that he is struggling and he wants his daughter to grow and be a responsible person.
Soki Vangu was a man who loved having other singers with him. One particular example is Nyboma and Pepe Kalle. Nyboma and Soki Vangu had known each other because they both were members of Orchestre Negro Success de Bavon Marie Marie. They came together after Diazenza became another person. Nyboma and Soki Vangu were so perfect together as singers. One particular song was Sofele. You just saw the goodness of those two men. But Soki Vangu added Pepe Kalle to further spice up Bella Bella. That example would the song Mbuta. We hear Soki Vangu and Nyboma backing up with Pepe Kalle on lead vocals.
What I am doing is giving my take on the man Soki Vangu himself. I am telling you how important he was during the Congolese music scene. He is one man who could have been a good solo act and a good collobrator. For example, on Sam Mangwana's Megamix song, he appears and still sounds great. Despite Soki Vangu's great talen, he was not able to advance as he should of. Regardless Soki Vangu was a dynamic star. I will do some youtube posts soon on Soki Vangu as well as Bella Bella.
I am going to speak on the interesting info on one band that I intially found nothing special but now I realize the importance of this group. I mean afterall, we had some notable songs I am aware come from this band. Also, this band made some songs that are not so forgettable.
The focus here is Bella Bella. This band was a great band born into the spotlight. This band was formed the Soki Brothers. It was Emilie Diazenza Soki and Maxime Vangu Soki. These two men were brothers. Soki Vangu was born in 1948 while Soki Diazenza was born in 1955.
Soki Vangu had a unique beginning. Actually it turns out that Soki Vangu had sang for Le Negro Success under the leadership of Franco's young brother Bavon Marie Marie before it died in 1970 after Bavon died in a car accident.
Soki Diazenza was a guy who never made it much to school and was always wanting to be in the spotlight. Well he won a singing contest in 1969.
From there, the brothers met and wanted to start a music career. They decided to come together and form a band together. They formed the band Bella Bella which means in spanish I think Beautiful Beautiful. But if so, it describes the band perfectly with some their classic songs.
They started doing hot by making some notable songs like Mado and Musoso. These songs helped rise the band Bella Bella and it started to become somewhat a good challanger to OK Jazz de Franco and Afrisa de Tabu Ley.
However when they joined the Veve Label, that is where all the problems started. Many musicians left the band however it leads to notable additions including Tonton Ricos, Manzenza, Michael, and Shaba Kahamba. Also another person joins them which is Nyboma. There now Bella Bella had four singers in Soki Diazenza, Soki Vangu, Mulembu Tshibau, and Nyboma. These four singers would shine for Bella Bella. But soon, Soki Diazenza had become very egoistic and was making Vangu mad. As result, Soki Diazenza left to do his own short lived attempt to do Bella Mambo. Soki Vangu felt he needed to get someone to come with him for a short stint. He found his luck.
While this situation was going on, there was another band in the block that had some notice. This time, Empire Bakuba was going on action to show their stint. They made some early songs like Nazoki, and Nabokula Ya Sabina. This band had the trio "KADIMA" who were Jose Dilu "Dilu Dilumona", Matolu Dode "Papy Tex" and Kabasele Yampanya "Pepe Kalle". However this band was not really going anywhere money and it seems that they were making occassional songs. This reason is why Pepe Kalle felt the need to sing with other people. He already had appeared on Vercky's controversial song Nakomitunaka. So he decided to join Bella Bella for a few months. As result, Bella Bella made two signifcant songs which were Mbuta and Lipua Lipua with establishing the trio of Nyboma, Pepe Kalle, and Soki Vangu.
But Bella Bella got back to its original shape when Soki Diazenza but they left Veve and many musicians stayed with the label which led to the formation of the band Lipua Lipua. But Bella Bella was getting on track once again and it found itself having the high time during the periods of 1973-75 with producing songs like Zing Zong, Horoscope, Houlex Houlex, and Zamba. Thes songs help make Bella Bella a major force to be reckon with.
But in late 1975, the described erratic Diazenza relaunched the Bella Mambo which also had the personnels of Diblo Dibala and Kanda Bongo Man. This led to a incredible slowdown for Soki Vangu but he continued to perform without his brother being around him. This was around the time when Bella Bella still had popularity though not many new songs were coming out.
Then around 1978, the brothers come back together but it was too little too late. Soki Diazenza seemed to have no interest in making music and Soki Vangu must have felt so much pain emotionally seeing his brother not that into music. Soki Vangu received his final blow in 1980 when his brother as well as Shaba Kahamba, Ponig Mananga, and Diadi Kasi left the band. Shaba went to join Afrisa International de Tabu Ley. Before the departure of Shaba, Soki Vangu had released a few songs like Soki Vangu Aye and Petitie Zizina which is a tribute to his daughter Zizina. Bella Bella was pretty much no more by 1981.
Soki Vangu did some occassional performances in Europe and sometimes visited Kinshasa. Soki Diazenza was singing in bars for money singing his old songs. Both of these brothers died in 1990. First was Soki Diazenza and later was Soki Vangu. Vangu was 42 years old and Diazenza was 35 years old.
