Franco the lion that roared but never pounced

One of the most famous musicians that continental Africa has produced, DRC’s Luambo Luanzo Makiadi aka Franco has etched himself an eternal place.

This week rumba music enthusiasts all over the world commemorated with great nostalgia the October 12, 1989 demise of the Grand Master of Congolese music.

As the fallen musical titan is remembered, my mind jogs to a few years ago when listening to one such commemoration on radio.

A reporter was interviewing some residents of Kinshasa, and one man made a remark that made me get interested in Franco than ever before.

Of course his recognition as the foremost DRC musician is something I have always reserved for him. Yet, this remark by this rather dismissive Kinshasa resident was overly unsettling.

The man went in typical Kingwana (the Swahili dialect spoken in the DRC): “Franco; yeye alikuwa anaimbaka tu mambo ya upuzi upuzi tu. Ile nzembo yake ambayo mimi iko naona iko na maana ni ile nasema ‘mwana mama,” The interviewee was insistent that in his opinion, Franco was a facile and parochial musician and the only song by Franco that moved him was this one where Franco talks about his fear for death.

Many accounts of Franco describe him as having considered death as a great injustice. Right from the death of his own dad in his childhood, to the latter day in 1970 death of his younger brother, Bavon Marie Marie, Franco’s view of death was quite depressive.

This could be the ethos that this man on radio was imbibing from the song he quoted.

Before this settled, an encounter with a lady from the DRC obviously led to conversation about Franco and his music, and her conclusion was quite simple: Franco was just about women and cheating lovers.

In my opinion, sentiments by the two who in those years of Franco would aptly be referred to as Zairois mpe Zairoise tended to present a simplistic view of the personage whom writer Graeme Ewens calls the Congo Colossus.

Franco had been part of our upbringing, his songs serenaded us from childhood, through our teenage, and up to now, those of us who appreciate rumba still have Franco as an indispensable part of the African rumba menu.

To those who are in their late thirties and above, school days entertainment was not complete without a number by the Tout Puissant O.K. Jazz.

Franco was and still is a hero to many who greatly admired him during his life, for the kind of following he commanded not only in his home Zaire, but in Africa and the world in general. As an artiste, Franco was one of the most successful, yet the comments by the lady and gentleman from Kinshasa cannot be warded off just like a fly being whisked off one’s face.

As a symbol of success, Franco was a typical man who rose from humble and doubt filled origins to come to stamp his will and influence on his community.

Of the Congolese music movements that emerged in the 1950s, one can distinctly be attributed to Franco who formed such a vital tributary in Congolese music.

Like any society in the world, the Congolese society was and still is symptomatic of inequalities in terms of access to education.

Many factors contribute to these inequalities and economists and sociologists have addressed these inequalities in many a fora and publications.

It is instructive to note that Franco emerged from the leeward side of the economic fence.

His own mother, Mama Makiese, working as a vendor in an open air market in Kinshasa, and his railway employed father dying when Franco was still a little boy.

This in itself sets a young Franco into a world where abundance is not part of nature.

Educationally, all accounts about the famed musician point to very modest academic credentials.

At best, he was a primary school dropout, who found more fun in playing football and playing with improvised guitars from sardine tins than burying himself in books.

At the time he entered into the music world, Franco represented the artiste who is down on the ground.

Rather than reduce Franco to the two factors that the catalysts of this article simplified him to, Franco would rather be considered as an artiste who lived during a time that would have granted him real greatness but who let the chance slip through his large fingers.

Franco was a keen observer, and one of his pet subjects was the womenfolk, as rightly pointed out by the lady from Kinshasa.

What he chose to see in the lady of his interest is what left bitterness in the mouth of our male reference point.

Franco saw his woman as a victim of herself, a victim of her lover, but never as the two being victims of the circumstances visited upon them by a political situation that was symptomatic of entertainment aboard the sinking MV Titanic.

However, Franco was many things at the same time. He was a social commentator, pillar of the status quo, and even a billboard or bullhorn for commercial enterprises both at home and abroad.

True to the observation by the lady from Kinshasa, Franco composed a lot of songs about the relationship between women and fellow women, and between men and women.

As Mario was raising so much dust in dance halls across East and Central Africa in the eighties, in Kinshasa, the song that was most warmly received was Mamou.

Franco goes on to enumerate all the gossip and bad mouthing going on between the two. Yes, Franco is talking about an important human relationship – that between a man and a woman, and between friends.

Again, questions are left to linger: What conditions bring about such a state of affairs, that a family should be so separated?

In view of the foregoing therefore, one would find it difficult to take the views of the lady and gentleman of Congolese origin referred to earlier from the face value, but rather from a critical perspective.

What the man referred to as ‘mambo ya upuzi upuzi’ was Franco’s failure to stand up to be counted at a time when his country needed him most owing to the artistic gift he had.

Whatever the case, Franco is one of the most influential personalities who lived in our times, and history presented him with great opportunities to make a more significant contribution to his society, but he failed to seize the opportunity by the collar and wrestle it to the ground.