Lately I have been doing some deep listening to Bella Bella songs including the ones that I posted in YouTube especially over two songs that did not have the more "popular" Soki in the song.
I am speaking about Soki Dianzenza and older brother Soki Vangu as you can in this picture here. The younger beard man was Emilie Soki and the older man on the right was Maxime Soki.
Here is what I am going to say. I am going to say this and I know Bella Bella fans will mad at me. I understand why?
Soki Dianzenza is totally overrated and Soki Vangu is so underrated. I have been thinking this way and now, I am very convinced that it is the case.
Think of this way, the main reason why people even care to listen to Bella Bella is primarily because of Emilie Soki. Maxime Soki is not exactly the "most exciting" singer. That kills him. Because Emilie was the "exciting" one. He had more passion in his voice (though Maxime had great passion too). Emilie was the one who was like Madilu and Mayaula Mayoni, so unpredictable with his voice. When he sang with Nyboma and Soki Vangu, his voice was much lower and more manly. But during his return from his should have never existed band Bella Mambo, his voice seemed to be more hyper and much more fascinating.
That is probably why people overvalue Soki Dianzenza more than they should. Also since he was a wild character with a great voice like he did, so many people are fascinated by that as well. That might be another reason why Soki Dianzenza is overvalued. And finally, because Soki Dianzenza had more energy as a singer.
But people fail to recognize is that Soki Vangu is pretty important for the success of Bella Bella. It was Soki Vangu that kept the band going when Soki Dianzenza decided to venture his own thing. TWICE, I might add.
Maxime Soki continued Bella Bella in the 1980s when his brother Emilie bailed on him again when his issues finally got him captured. So sad because the Sokis could have continued but Emilie's issues became too overbearing clearly. But of course people bail on Maxime since he no longer had his brother in his wing.
Maxime Soki has never gotten his due because people really think mostly of Emilie Soki and they like and they will continue to try to forget about Maxime Soki as they would say he was "cocktail" of Emilie Soki that Emilie was the only special one.
That is how I guess that people see Bella Bella group. Majority consider Emilie Soki as the special one and Maxime Soki as the secondary and almost non valuable one.
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.
