Astonishingly it is 24 years since this first came out. Afro-pop was big in the early 90’s and Papa Wemba was leading the way. I had just come back from a trip to (what was then) Zaire and Papa Wemba’s music could be heard in every market stall and every bar and every truck from Kisangani to Kinshasa. He was the undisputed King of the Rhumba. Most of his music was only available on cassette and I filled my rucksack with dozens of tapes by the likes of Papa Wemba, Franco, Zaiko Langa Langa and Kanda Bongo Man. When I heard that Realworld had signed Papa Wemba to record an album I was super excited. The Zairoise tapes were excellent and exuberant and wonderful but many were not well recorded with sometimes patchy sound quality.
Emotion did not disappoint. Papa Wemba’s voice could be heard clearer than ever and the opening tracks Yolele and Mandola are probably as good as it gets and evoke the Congolese sounds perfectly. Personally I could live without the Otis Reading track Fa Fa Fa Fa (Sad Song) as this smacks of trying a bit too hard to achieve the cross over appeal of, say, Youssou N’Dour who achieved amazing international success with 7 Seconds earlier the year this was released. Papa Wemba is too good to need to do this.
This is still an excellent album and has stood the test of time. And it is great having it on vinyl too.
