AFRICA THE CONGOS

This week "All Around This World" visits two Congos -- the Democratic Republic of Congo, sometimes known as Congo-Kinshasa, and the Republic of Congo, a.k.a. Congo-Brazzaville. Neither has had an easy recent history, but they're substantially different countries that have experienced very different ups and downs. One thing they do have in common is soukous -- contagious, pulsing dance music that starts with Cuban dancehall rumba and adds a heaping cascade of African guitars.

In class we dancie the Kwassa Kwassa, the primary dance of soukous music, in which the legs shake, the hips roll around and the hands follow the hips’ motion. The dance originated in the 1970s and became popular all over Africa in the ’80s. The name for the dance may have come from the French “Quoi ça”? (what’s that?).

The Kwassa Kwassa appeared almost two decades after the Congos became independent, but its relationship to Soukous, which arose from Congolese Rumba, makes it feel like a dance celebrating freedom. Knowing the region’s many troubles, dancing the Kwassa Kwassa helps connect us with a time in Central Africa when the future looked bright and hope reigned supreme. What can we do to help that optimistic time come again?