Tongos'a / Likolo by KOKOKO!

KOKOKO! is an explosive new band with an alternative sound crafted in Kinshasa, DRC.

Their second EP, TONGOS’A, is out October 20 on ICI, and finds the band further exploring themes of survival in the DRC’s current political climate. EP opener Tongos’a, or "til the morning light", is a raunchy ghetto anthem from singer Love Lokombe about the necessity of getting laid properly. The tropical bass line is a folkloric pattern from the Mongo tribe repertoire, with the song becoming an instant hit among the Yanké (thugs) of Kinshasa’s Kato district.

On Likolo, lead-singer Makara Bianko adapts a traditional funeral chant from his Bateke ethnicity and turns it into a plea for detachment and spirituality. The song is ironically anchored in Kinshasa's hectic reality, where the quest for money is but everything. Using choir-like arrangements, Bianko ironizes on the vanity of mankind: "we are all naked bodies under the sky / we all know how it's going to end.”