Tshala Muana

Élisabeth Tshala Muana Muidikay was born on 13 May 1958 in Élisabethville, now Lubumbashi, in the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She grew up with connections to the Kasai region and early exposure to Luba and Lulua cultural practice and women's social dancing. In the late 1970s, Muana began her professional life as a dancer in Kinshasa, working with ensembles including Tsheke Tsheke Love before establishing herself as a singer. Her recording career developed during the early 1980s with work in Abidjan and Paris, producing albums and songs such as *M'Pokolo*, *Nasi Nabali*, *Karibu Yangu*, *Mutuashi* and *Malu* that carried her voice across Central, East and West Africa. The title "Queen of Mutuashi" reflects her sustained association with a dance-music form from Kasai rooted in Tshiluba-speaking culture. On stage, Muana joined vocal delivery, costume and pronounced hip-centered dance vocabulary as integral elements of her artistry. Her recordings combined Congolese popular-music arrangements with rhythmic and linguistic references that made dance neither accompaniment nor ornament, but one of the principal ways the music signaled place, gendered social knowledge and public charisma. Muana also entered political life and became associated with the PPRD. In 2020 she was detained after the release of *Ingratitude*, widely interpreted as political commentary. Tshala Muana died in Kinshasa on 10 December 2022 at age 64.