Ndombolo

Ndombolo grew out of soukous in 1990s Kinshasa and became, for roughly fifteen years, the most widely danced popular form across sub-Saharan Africa. It lives in the sebene, the extended guitar-driven instrumental section where the atalaku, the shouter, calls the crowd into the step. Tutu Caludji of Wenge Musica is credited with the ndombolo cry that gave the dance its name. The etymology is disputed: the scholar Milau K. Lutumba reads the movements as a collective expression of Congolese hope for the end of Mobutu Sese Seko's rule, while other accounts hold that the name mocked Laurent-Desire Kabila, with lyrics about weak and broken legs and a stooped walk. The movement is hip-led and continuous, with soft knees, the pelvis rotating and thrusting on the sebene's accents and the arms and shoulders punctuating; it is danced solo, in facing pairs and in tight synchronised lines. JB Mpiana took the first gold-selling ndombolo album in 1997, while Werrason, Koffi Olomide, Awilo Longomba and the Brazzaville group Extra Musica carried it across the continent, Extra Musica breaking it into Anglophone Africa. Its explicitness provoked bans: several African broadcasters barred it in the early 2000s as pornographic, and Cameroon prohibited it as excessively erotic.