Opika
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Opika
Opika was an early record label in the Congo, which recorded and promoted African pop, guitar, and rumba - not only from the Congo, but from Cameroon and Ghana as well. The label also recognized the value of ethnographic recordings, which were featured on a number of their releases. Started by brothers Gabriel Moussa Benetar and Joseph Benetar, from the Greek island of Rhodes, Opika was a prodigious producer of 78 rpm shellac recordings through the late 1950s. The company was initially called "Kina," but the name was subsequently changed to “Opika” from a phrase in Lingala, “opika pende” meaning “stand firm”. The name Opika was chosen in some sense as a challenge to the reigning and monolithic recording house Ngoma that this new recording company was a force to be reckoned with. The label was the first to sign Joseph Kabaselle who, along with other Opika session players Nico and Déchaud formed the band African Jazz, which contributed heavily to the evolving Latin- ...
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Le Grand Kallé
Joseph Athanase Tshamala Kabasele (16 December 1930 in Matadi, Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) – 11 February 1983 in Paris, France), popularly known as Le Grand Kallé, was a Congolese singer and bandleader, considered the father of modern Congolese music. He is best known for his role as leader of the band, ''Le Grand Kallé et l'African Jazz'', in which capacity he was involved in a number of noted songs, including ''Indépendance Cha Cha''. Background Joseph Athanase Tchamala Kabasele was born in Matadi, Bas-Congo in what was then the Belgian Congo, modern Democratic Republic of Congo. He came from a prominent Congolese family, which included Cardinal Joseph Malula. Kallé went to secondary school and became a typist at a succession of commercial firms in the capital of the Belgian Congo, Léopoldville. Career In the early 1950s, at a new recording studio called Opika, Kasabele received an opportunity to pursue a career in music. He joined with two of t ...
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Paul Mwanga
Paul Mwanga (1932–2016) was a vocalist and composer. He was one of the early pioneers of Congolese rumba. He was born in Angola. In 1944, when modern Congolese music was only in its earliest days, Paul Mwanga's music gained popular review among the local public. He began his career working in the company of seminal greats such as Wendo Kolosoy, Wendo, and recorded a number of hits on the Opika Label teaming up with famous "Hawaiian" style guitarist Jhimmy (Zacharie Elenga). Around 1950 or 1951 Nico Kasanda, Nicolas Kasanda, later to be popularly known as Docteur Nico, made his debut singing behind Paul Mwanga. In 1958 Mwanga signed to the young recording label Ngoma (record label), Ngoma, which began a new period for him where his fame reached its height for his career. At the time he was one of the principal artists recording in the language Kikongo. Mwanga passed away in 2016. Shortly before that, he took part in Alan Brain's documentary The Rumba Kings, released in 2021. ...
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Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and the third-largest in the global music industry, after Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME). Formerly part of Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery), WMG was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange from 2005 until 2011, when it announced its privatization and sale to Access Industries. It later had its second IPO on Nasdaq in 2020, once again becoming a public company. With a multibillion-dollar annual turnover, WMG employs more than 3,500 people and has operations in more than 50 countries throughout the world. The company owns and operates some of the largest and most successful labels in the world, including Elektra Records, Reprise Records, Warner Records, Parlophone Records (formerly owned by EMI), ...
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List Of Record Labels
File:Alvinoreyguitarboogie.jpg File:AmMusicBunk78.jpg File:Bingola1011b.jpg Lists of record labels cover record labels, brands or trademarks associated with marketing of music recordings and music videos. The lists are organized alphabetically, by genre, by company and by location. Alphabetical * List of record labels: 0–9 * List of record labels: A–H * List of record labels: I–Q * List of record labels: R–Z By genre * Bing Crosby's record labels after 1955 *List of Christian record labels *List of electronic music record labels * List of hip hop record labels *List of tango music labels By company *List of EMI labels *List of Kakao M labels *Record labels owned by Sony BMG *List of Sony Music labels *List of Universal Music Group labels * List of Warner Music Group labels By location *List of Bangladeshi record labels *List of record labels from Bristol *List of New Zealand record labels *List of Quebec record labels *List of West Coast hip hop record labels *List of ...
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Congolese Rumba
Congolese rumba is a popular genre of dance music that originated in the Congo basin during the 1940s, deriving from Cuban son. The style gained popularity throughout Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. It is known as Lingala in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania after the Lingala language of the lyrics in the majority of the songs. In Zambia and Zimbabwe, where Congolese music is also influential, it is still usually referred to as rumba. It is also an individual dance. In December 2021, Congolese rumba was added to the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. History In the 1930s and 1940s, Afro-Cuban son groups, such as Septeto Habanero, Trio Matamoros, and Los Guaracheros de Oriente, were played over Radio Congo Belge in Léopoldville (Kinshasa), gaining widespread popularity in the country during the following decades. Once local bands tried to emulate the sound of Cuban son (incorrectly referred to as "rumba" in Africa, despite being unrelated to Cuban rumba), their music b ...
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Le Grand Kallé Et L'African Jazz
''Le Grand Kallé et l'African Jazz'', often simply referred to as African Jazz, was a popular and extremely influential Congolese rumba (soukous) band from the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. Founded in 1953 in Kinshasa, Léopoldville (modern-day Kinshasa) under Belgian Congo, Belgian colonial rule, the band was led by Joseph Kabasele Tshamala, popularly known by his stage name Le Grand Kallé. The group saw its heyday between 1958 and 1962, after which it was hit by defections by its members in 1963. It was briefly revived after 1966. History African Jazz emerged from the vibrant urban culture of Léopoldville during the last decade of Belgian rule in the Congo. Its music, driven by members of the Évolué, rising African middle class, became popular during the move towards independence as an expression of rising national self-confidence. The new musical style, pioneered by the group, brought together foreign musical influences and western instruments with indigenou ...
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Decherd, Tennessee
Decherd is a city in Franklin County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,246 at the 2000 census and 2,361 at the 2010 census. History Peter Decherd came to the area in 1831 from Franklin County, Virginia and set up a plantation. In the 1850s he granted right-of-way to the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. On February 14, 1856, the thirty-first General Assembly of the state of Tennessee incorporated the town of Decherd with all the rights and privileges as the town of Cookeville, which was also incorporated at that time. After the Civil War, Decherd was again incorporated as a town on January 30, 1868. It was unincorporated in 1885 to avoid application of the "Four Mile Law", which permitted liquor sales within four miles of schools located in incorporated communities. The town was chartered once again by the General Assembly on April 22, 1901. The Haynes House in Decherd is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A violent F4 tornado heavily damaged th ...
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Nico Kasanda
Naftiran Intertrade Company limited (NICO) is a Swiss-based subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). NICO is a general contractor for the oil and gas industry. NIOC buys the vast majority of Iran's gasoline imports. NICO is a key player in Iran's energy sector. History ''Naftiran Trading Services (NTS)'' was established in the Jersey Channel Islands (United Kingdom) in 1991. The intention was to start trading crude oil and products, as well as to create a competitive opportunity for the investment in oil and gas projects, as well as to play an active role in world energy security. In June 2003, a decision was made by NICOs management to transfer the whole NTS activities to a newly established company named Naftiran Intertrade Co ( Sàrl), in Lausanne, Switzerland. ''Petro Suisse Intertrade Company (SA)'', ''Hong Kong Intertrade'', ''Noor Energy (Malaysia) Ltd'' and ''Petro Energy Intertrade (Dubai)'', all alleged front companies for NIOC/NICO, have been sanctione ...
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Ngoma (record Label)
Ngoma was one of the first record labels intended to provide local African music to the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The name Ngoma came from the Kikongo word for drum.Stewart, p. 26 The label was created in 1948 by the Greek businessman Nicolas Jéronimidis, and was active until 1968. Its catalog included many known artists at that time including Camille Feruzi, who is said to have popularized rumba during the 1930s, Antoine Wendo Kolosoy, one of the biggest names of all-time in Congolese music, the Angolan Manuel d'Oliveira, Léon Bukasa, Antoine Mundanda, Paul Mwanga and Albert Luampasi, the guitarist who is said to have taught the famous Congolese musician François Luambo Makiadi (Franco) his first guitar chords. Notes References *{{cite book, title=Rumba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos, year=2000, publisher=Verso, isbn=978-1-85984-368-0, author=Gary Stewart See also * List of record labels File:Alvinoreyguitarboo ...
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Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of the Belgians attempted to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexploited Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold's establishing a colony himself. With support from a number of Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition of the Congo Free State in 1885. By the turn of the century, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and a ruthless system of economic exploitation led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country, which it did by creating the Belgian Congo in 1908. Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial tr ...
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Lingala
Lingala (Ngala) (Lingala: ''Lingála'') is a Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser degree in Angola, the Central African Republic and southern South Sudan. Lingala has 15–20 million native speakers and about 25 million second-language speakers, for a total of 40–45 million speakers. History Prior to 1880, Bobangi was an important trade language on the western sections of the Congo river, more precisely between Stanley Pool (Kinshasa) and the confluence of the Congo and Ubangi rivers. When in the early 1880s, the first Europeans and their West- and East-African troops started founding state posts for the Belgian king along this river section, they noticed the widespread use and prestige of Bobangi. They attempted to learn it, but only cared to acquire an imperfect knowledge of it, a process that gave rise to a new, strongl ...
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Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Togo in the east.Jackson, John G. (2001) ''Introduction to African Civilizations'', Citadel Press, p. 201, . Ghana covers an area of , spanning diverse biomes that range from coastal savannas to tropical rainforests. With nearly 31 million inhabitants (according to 2021 census), Ghana is the List of African countries by population, second-most populous country in West Africa, after Nigeria. The capital and List of cities in Ghana, largest city is Accra; other major cities are Kumasi, Tamale, Ghana, Tamale, and Sekondi-Takoradi. The first permanent state in present-day Ghana was the Bono state of the 11th century. Numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful were the Kingdom of Dagbon in the north and ...
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