Franco - Biography
François Luambo Makiadi, known simply as Franco, was a true giant whose impact and influence on the development of modern African music cannot be underestimated. A talented vocalist with hearty pipes, he was renowned for his guitar prowess and respected for his lyrical content. He composed a steady stream of Congolese hits beginning in the mid-1950s and stretching across four decades until his demise from AIDS in 1989. He recorded over 1,000 songs during his prolific career and mentored hundreds of musicians, many who became stars in their own right. His poetic lyrics were mostly sung in the musically rich Lingala language. From love songs to satirical and blunt social commentary, his compelling music made him a potent socio-political force. This “Sorcerer of the Guitar” made his mark as he improvised into invention a new genre of modern African music, soukous, which became a pan-African phenomenon and catapulted him onto the European stage.
Franco was born on July 6, 1938 in the Bas-Zaïre region of the Belgian Congo but grew up in the capital Leopoldville. He began entertaining friends and family as a young child playing a guitar he fashioned out of a cooking oil can. By 1950, he was performing with a musician named Paul Ebengo Dewayon and his group Watams (Delinquents). He sang vocal harmony and played maracas, but he soon receiving an acoustic guitar from a sympathetic priest and his fate was sealed. During a recording session at the Loningisa Studio that had been recently established by a Greek businessman, Franco was offered a ten-year recording contract. As part of the Bana Loningisa (Loningisa Boys), Franco cut his chops as a studio musician working with a core unit that included sax, clarinet, accordion, percussion, and double bass. With over 150 bars and clubs that fueled a vibrant music scene, Leopoldville was cultivating a new music known as Rumba Lingala that combined Cuban son with Congolese folklore, biguine, and French popular song.
Franco’s first hit “Bolingo na Ngai na Beatrice” (“My Love for Beatrice”) was released in 1953 as a 78 rpm record. Working in the studio by day and playing in clubs most nights with various groups and musical configurations, Franco evolved quickly. A regular gig at the OK Bar would lead to the founding of the band OK Jazz with singer Rossignol and saxophonist/clarinetist Jean-Serge Essous. The band also featured two electric guitars, bass, homemade percussion, and conga. They made their auspicious debut on June 6, 1956. Their signature tune “On Entre OK, On Sort KO” (“You enter OK, you leave KO’ed”) would become an enduring classic. An excellent collection of 20 songs by Franco and OK Jazz, Originalité 1957-1959 (1994 Retro Afrique), documents their early Rumba Lingala. One can hear the strong Latin influence on songs such as “La Fiesta” and “Merengue,” which were sung in a pidgin Spanish.
Cha cha cha’s and slow boleros were quite popular in the late 1950s and Leopoldville’s musicians copied these Cuban song forms. Franco and OK Jazz took the Cuban son, switched out the guitar for the piano, and injected Congolese folkloric rhythms and melodies, thus creating a more danceable Rumba Lingala. Franco would later comment that they were not copying Cuban music but re-integrating its African-ness. Although early OK Jazz song recordings were confined to about three minutes due to the limitations of the 78 rpm record, they stand the test of time. Moreover, Franco’s distinctly melodic and aggressive guitar leaps out from its musical bed as his fingers “attack the strings like talons,” as one anonymous commentator observed. The band’s popularity spread across the river to Congo-Brazzaville and to the interior where gramophone players were all the rage. A bit of a dandy, Franco liked the nice clothes and shoes that his popularity bestowed him and enjoyed zipping around on his Vespa scooter. Belgian authorities took note and, after several driving infractions, sent him to prison for two months in 1959.
He was welcomed home like a hero after his incarceration and was given the moniker “Sorcerer of the Guitar” after one particularly memorable performance. Franco, a serious musician who was known for being meticulous about equipment and organization, emerged as the director of OK Jazz as unrest in the colonial capital grew. The song “Ah Bolingo Pasi” (“Oh the Pain of Love”) from this period featured a non-standard trumpet solo, a hint of what was to come. Independence from Belgium in 1960 ushered in the golden age of Congolese music, and OK Jazz remained busy recording and performing steadily. The band seemed to be constantly expanding, adding more singers, dancers, and brass until there were as many as 20 performers on stage. A remarkable song from this period is “Liwa ya Wechi” (“The Death of Wechi”), which showcases Franco’s emotionally strained voice and features a memorable clarinet solo.
The music scene thrived in spite of the political turmoil. Simaro Lutumba, a talented guitarist and singer, joined OK Jazz, as well as singer Kwamy and saxophonist Kiamanguana Verckys. Each of the new members would be prolific composers and contributors to the developing Rumba Lingala. Under Franco’s direction, OK Jazz would slow down the beat with a more rock-like variant. His cover version of Eddie Palmieri’s “Café” is a fine example of this and its tempo shift, like changing gears, would point the way for the evolution of the Congolese rumba. In 1965, Mobutu took control of the country and then Leopoldville was renamed Kinshasa in the following year. OK Jazz was clearly the most popular amongst the local bands. Tours to Nigeria, Europe, and Senegal began to establish Franco abroad. Meanwhile, the introduction of the 45 rpm single allowed them to stretch recordings up to five minutes and led to licensing deals in Europe.
Franco was instrumental in a crucial musical leap called sebene, an improvisational section added as a second part to a song during which the musicians soar through an instrumental romp spurred by a repetitive riff on the guitar. The style lent itself to the 45 rpm format; the main song would be on side one and the sebene would be on side two. Beginning in the later ‘60s, this became the Kinshasa standard and dancers eagerly anticipated a song breaking into its sebene. Another major innovation was the mi-solo guitar part — a third electric guitar that adds a second lead to the dizzying lattice of guitar work. One of Franco’s most hallowed songs, “Infidelité Mado,” released in the early ‘70s, is a stunning example of the riff-driven sebene.
When James Brown came to town for show in 1969, Congolese musicians caught the funk and injected it into their sebenes, making them more groove tight. In 1971, Franco added four trumpets to mesh with the four saxophones and introduced a dance troupe to his live shows. President Mobutu changed the country’s name from Congo-Kinshasa to Zaïre and introduced the “authenticité” movement that banned European names and customs such as the necktie. Franco obliged, changed his name to L’Okanga La Ndju Pene Luambo Makiadi and toured extensively in Africa with a huge traveling troupe, playing to massive crowds in football stadiums. Adding to the innovative harmonic interplay of the four or five front line singers, Sam Mangwana and Josky Kiambukuta joined the group, soon to become legendary figures themselves. Franco built an entertainment complex in Kinshasa and the whole world watched the “rumble in the jungle” heavyweight fight between Mohammed Ali and George Foreman live from the heart of the Congo.
Meanwhile a generation of musicians emerged, such as Zaiko Langa Langa, who eschewed the horn section in favor of electric guitars and a heavier rhythm section. The slower paced, structured Rumba Lingala song format was dropped like a vestigial limb and the groove of the sebene became predominant. By this time Congolese music came to be known as soukous, from the French word meaning to shake. Its popularity would spread throughout West, East, and Central Africa, and the Caribbean. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, soukous permeated the African pop scene from its base in Paris. Kinshasa saw the birth of dozens of new bands and a fluid pool of musicians who came and went from one band to another. OK Jazz experienced many personnel changes that would continue through the band’s development. For his part, Franco was known to be generous in welcoming back musicians who left the fold.
By the mid-1970s, Franco and OK Jazz were releasing full-length albums from Brussels, Paris, and throughout Africa. The band was both popular and prosperous. His catchy song “AZDA,” which was basically a commercial for a Volkswagen dealer, secured a car for each of the band members. A large man at well over six feet, Franco became known for his insatiable appetite for food and his lavish feasts as he grew to 300 pounds. Typical of his brand of dark humor, he wrote the song “Mbanda ya Mama ya Mobali” (“The Mother-In-Law’s Co-wife”) about a woman who couldn’t stop eating, grew obese, jumped in a swimming pool and emptied all the water, and kept eating until she exploded, leaving a stinking mess. His double album, 1976’s 20éme Anniversaire (1976 Sonodisc), captures the band in full force, although its sounds of live ambiance may have been added in the studio. That same year, he was given the prestigious honor of being made an Officer of the National Order of the Leopard, and the whole band received medals of recognition.
Singer Ntesa Dalienst joined Franco and immediately contributed the controversial tune “Lisolo ya Adamo na Nzambe” (“A Dialogue Between Adam and God”). Church leaders claimed it was sacrilege but the singer claimed the long song about the complex relationship between man and woman merely meant to point out that women’s faults are caused by men. In 1977, Franco and OK Jazz were chosen to represent Zaïre at the Pan-African FESTAC festival in Lagos, Nigeria and in 1978 the band made its first full-fledged tour of Europe. Live recordings of the tour were released as a double LP entitled Live Recording of the Afro-European Tour (1978 Sonodisc). Back in Kinshasa, Franco’s semi-pornographic and scatological lyrics to a song about a woman named “Jacky” got him in trouble with authorities who sent him and ten of his musicians to jail for two months. Many saw the event as a power check on Franco who had become one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Zaïre.
In 1980, Franco decided to relocate to Brussels, Belgium, spurred by his rising record sales in Europe and a desire to better educate his rapidly growing brood of children. That same year he was made honorary President of the Musician’s Union and awarded the title of Grand Maitre (Grand Master) in Kinshasa. Franco assumed full control of recording, producing, manufacturing, and distributing the records of his newky renamed band, TPOK Jazz (the TP was added to signify “tout puissant,” or all powerful). He would continue to maintain a band in Kinshasa under the direction of Lutumba and return to perform regularly with the core of the band and the main singers, who remained with Franco in Europe. From his new base he set out to conquer the world. In 1983 he played several shows in New York City and Washington, DC, but the economics of touring with a group of 45 members forced him to venture alone to the US.
Every Franco fan can probably point to the song that drew them in and revealed the magic of his music. For this reviewer, it is the song “Tres Impoli,” a 1984 release that clocks in at almost 20 minutes. A doubled guitar riff repeats itself to a steady rhythm as Franco’s earthy sweet voice earnestly recounts a story of one who is very impolite. A chorus that asks “Why are you so impolite?” chimes in like a people’s jury remarking upon Franco’s judgmental observations, “You say anything you like without any sense of shame” and “You go to people with your hair unkempt and you ask them for a comb.” After several minutes, the repetitive music has you in a trance. Then the horn section enters, ratcheting up the melodic and harmonic swirl as one is left in ecstatic reverie. The song’s musical seduction succeeds because it possesses both beauty and sincerity.
Continuing his prolific output in the ‘80s, Franco released a full-length album every other month with songs that stretch out to fill an entire side of an album. He reunited with singer Sam Mangwana, now an African superstar, on the excellent album Coopération (1982 Edipop). The following year he teamed up with his former rival, singer Tabu Ley Rochereau, with Lettre a M. Le Directeur General (1983 Edipop). His song about a male hustler, “Mario,” featuring the quavering falsetto of a new young singer, Madilu System, would become his biggest hit upon its release in 1985.
In the late ‘80s, Franco began to lose weight rapidly and rumors were rampant that he had AIDS, which was all but confirmed with gripping urgency in Attention Na Sida (1987 African Sun Music). The epic title song of the album implores listeners to be aware and protect themselves, and drives home the point that no one is immune. As Franco’s health declined and his physical presence shrunk, he defiantly commented to the British press in 1989 that he found African music to be superior to European music. “In European music you start to sing. You reach the chorus then, that’s it. Finish. You might hear it twice, but in our music you hear it three, four, five times.” (Ewens, Congo Colossus: The Life & Legacy of Franco & OK Jazz, 1994).
In September 1989, this reviewer traveled to the Melkeweg club in Amsterdam to witness what would be Franco’s final performance. OK Jazz played for an hour or more and then Franco emerged from the back of the hall, a shrunken and emaciated figure, helped by several band members. With tears streaming down the faces of the singers, Franco was placed in a chair on stage. He was barely able to hold the guitar but played a few spare notes in a macabre show of will. On October 12, 1989, “Le Grand Maitre” of African music passed on in Brussels. His body was returned to Kinshasa as thousands lined the streets for the procession. President Mobutu declared four days of national mourning. During that time, the national radio station played nothing but Franco and OK Jazz music. The group’s output was so expansive that the radio stations could have done so without ever repeating a song. His vast legacy of recordings and the continuing careers of scores of his protégés secure his immortality.
