Ricardo Lemvo (born September 3, 1957) is a singer of
Angolan descent who lives in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. His music is a blend of African soukous,
kizomba
Kizomba is a dance and musical genre that originated in Angola in 1984.
Kizomba means "party" in Kimbundu, a Bantu language spoken by the Ambundu in Angola.
Origin and evolution
Music genre
The origins of kizomba can be traced to late-1970 ...
,
samba
Samba (), also known as samba urbano carioca (''urban Carioca samba'') or simply samba carioca (''Carioca samba''), is a Brazilian music genre that originated in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century. Havin ...
and Cuban
salsa
Salsa most often refers to:
* Salsa (Mexican cuisine), a variety of sauces used as condiments
* Salsa music, a popular style of Latin American music
* Salsa (dance), a Latin dance associated with Salsa music
Salsa or SALSA may also refer to:
...
.
Early years and family
Lemvo was born in Kimpese,
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
, and as a boy he lived in
Kinshasa
Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one o ...
.
[Siddhartha Mitter]
"Congolese singer Ricardo Lemvo bridges styles, cultures"
''Boston Globe'' (September 12, 2015). His family is Angolan, from
M'banza-Kongo in the northern part of Angola. His grandfather,
João Mantantu Dundulu N'lemvo, was a Baptist pastor who worked with British missionaries in the 1880s, and was the first Angolan to translate the English-language Bible into
Kikongo
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from th ...
. Although Lemvo grew up in the D.R.C. and later in the United States, he said in an interview that Angolan is foremost among his three nationalities: (translated) "I am the product of these three countries, but I feel Angolan on top of everything, because it is in this country that my roots are located, inside Kongo dya Ntontila."
[Portuguese original: "Sou o produto destes três paises, mas sinto-me angolano em cima de tudo, porque é neste pais que se situa as minhas raizes, no interior de Kongo dya Ntontila."])
As a 13- or 14-year-old, in Kinshasa during breaks from his Catholic boarding school in
Gombe-Matadi, Lemvo joined a youth band called Mira Mira, singing American R&B songs by
James Brown
James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...
and
Otis Redding
Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. ...
.
Kinshasa is where Lemvo first encountered and enjoyed Cuban music; taking advantage of a cousin's large record collection, he would listen to
Orquesta Aragón
Orquesta Aragón is a Cuban musical band formed on 30 September 1939, by Orestes Aragón Cantero in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The band originally had the name ''Ritmica 39'', then ''Ritmica Aragón'' before settling on its final form. Though they did not ...
,
Arsenio Rodríguez
Arsenio Rodríguez (born Ignacio Arsenio Travieso Scull; 31 August 1911 – 30 December 1970)Giro, Radamés 2007. ''Diccionario enciclopédico de la música en Cuba''. La Habana, v. 4 p. 45 et seq. was a Cuban musician, composer and bandleader ...
,
Sonora Matancera
La Sonora Matancera is a Cuban band that played Latin American urban popular dance music. Founded in 1924 and led for more than five decades by guitarist, vocalist, composer, and producer Rogelio Martínez, musicologists consider it an icon of ...
and
Abelardo Barroso
Abelardo Barroso Dargeles (21 September 1905 – 27 September 1972) was a Cuban bandleader and singer, the first sonero mayor (lead singer of the son) to be recognized as such by the Cuban public.
Born in Havana, Cuba, he was the lead singer ...
.
He also credited his musical interest to the fact that his parents' house in Kinshasa was next to a bar, which would loudly play Congolese and Cuban rumba, as well as New York salsa, at all hours.
He moved to California, in the United States, at age 15 to continue his education, and has lived there since. He graduated from
Lawndale High School
Lawndale High School is one of three high schools in Lawndale, California, United States. The school was closed in 1981, and reopened in 1998. It is one of three schools in the Centinela Valley Union High School District.
In 2009, Lawndale High ...
and later from
California State University, Los Angeles
California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) is a public university in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system. Cal State LA offers 142 bachelor's degrees, 122 master's degrees, ...
with a bachelor's degree in
Political Science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
.
Lemvo has a daughter, Isabela, whose name is the title of one of his songs and the title of the band's 2007 album.
["Ricardo Lemvo Mixes Cultures in Song"](_blank)
''NPR'' (March 25, 2008).
Career
In 1990, though he does not read music or play any instrument, Lemvo formed the band Makina Loca. That name is, according to ''
The Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiar ...
'', "an appropriately multilingual pun that means 'crazy machine' in
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
and roughly 'dancing in a trance' in
Kikongo
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from th ...
." With Makina Loca, Lemvo has become, again according to ''The Mercury News'', "one of the most creative and successful salsa bandleaders" in Southern California.
[Andrew Gilbert]
"Ricardo Lemvo brings his rich Afro-Latin sound to South Bay"
''The Mercury News'' (July 7, 2014).
Lemvo sings in English, French, Kikongo, Kimbundu, Lingala, Lucumi, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, and Turkish.
He blends Latin and African musical styles, "sprinkling in rumba, merengue or Afro-Portuguese elements."
His earlier recordings, including the 1998 hit "Mambo Yo Yo," were largely based on mixing Congolese
rumba
The term rumba may refer to a variety of unrelated music styles. Originally, "rumba" was used as a synonym for "party" in northern Cuba, and by the late 19th century it was used to denote the complex of secular music styles known as Cuban rumba ...
and
soukous
Soukous (from French '' secousse'', "shock, jolt, jerk") is a genre of dance music from Congo-Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville. It derived from Congolese rumba in the 1960s, becoming known for its fast dance rhythms and intricate guitar improv ...
with Cuban
son
A son is a male offspring; a boy or a man in relation to his parents. The female counterpart is a daughter. From a biological perspective, a son constitutes a first degree relative.
Social issues
In pre-industrial societies and some current c ...
and
salsa
Salsa most often refers to:
* Salsa (Mexican cuisine), a variety of sauces used as condiments
* Salsa music, a popular style of Latin American music
* Salsa (dance), a Latin dance associated with Salsa music
Salsa or SALSA may also refer to:
...
, but more recently Lemvo explored his Angolan heritage, singing in Portuguese and indigenous Angolan languages, and playing Angolan rhythms such as
semba
Semba is a traditional type of music and dance from Angola. Semba comes from the singular Massemba, meaning "a touch of the bellies" - one of the most recognizable and entertaining movements in semba.History of Semba , Kizombalove Academy
Chara ...
and
kizomba
Kizomba is a dance and musical genre that originated in Angola in 1984.
Kizomba means "party" in Kimbundu, a Bantu language spoken by the Ambundu in Angola.
Origin and evolution
Music genre
The origins of kizomba can be traced to late-1970 ...
.
The latter form of music was influenced by the French-Caribbean
zouk
Zouk is a musical movement pioneered by the French Antillean band Kassav' in the early 1980s. It was originally characterized by a fast tempo (120–145 bpm), a percussion-driven rhythm and a loud horn section. The fast zouk béton of Martini ...
.
Guest artists on his recordings have included well-known Congolese, Cape Verdean, and Cuban musicians
Sam Mangwana
Sam, SAM or variants may refer to:
Places
* Sam, Benin
* Sam, Boulkiemdé, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Bourzanga, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Kongoussi, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Iran
* Sam, Teton County, Idaho, United States, a populated place
People and fictional ...
,
Papa Noel,
Nyboma,
Wuta Mayi
Gaspard Wuta Mayi, commonly known as Wuta Mayi, is a Congolese rumba and soukous vocalist and composer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). From 1974 to 1982, he was a member of the band TPOK Jazz, led by Franco (François Luambo Ma ...
,
Syran Mbenza,
Bopol Mansiamina,
"Huit Kilos" Nseka,
Maria de Barros Maria de Barros (born February 3, 1961, in Dakar, Senegal) is a singer most associated with Cape Verde, the land of her parents. Growing up in Nouakchott, Mauritania, she moved to the United States at the age of 11, living in Providence, Rhode Islan ...
, and
Alfredo de la Fé.
Lemvo and Makina Loca appeared in the 1998 movie ''
Dance With Me'' starring Vanessa Williams and Chayanne. in 1998, the American World Music Awards, a spin-off of the
Houston International Festival,
honored Lemvo as Emerging Artist of the Year.
At the 2015
Angola Music Awards
The Angola Music Awards (AMA) is an organization of Mener Group with special partnership of the Angolan Ministry of Culture. It is held annually and included in the official program of Fenacult. The awards highlight the work of the popular arti ...
Lemvo won Music D'Ouro for the song "Curtição (A resposta)".
In addition to regularly playing Los Angeles clubs,
Lemvo has toured widely, and has performed at prestigious festivals throughout Europe, the Americas and Australia.
As a few examples, he has played at the
John F. Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage in Washington, D.C. in June 1998,
the
Roskilde Festival
The Roskilde Festival is a Danish music festival held annually south of Roskilde. It is one of the largest music festivals in Europe and the largest in the Nordic countries. It was created in 1971 by two high school students and a promoter. In 1 ...
in Denmark in 2000,
the HeimatKlänge Festival in Berlin in July–August 2001,
the
Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat, Irael in August 2001,
New York's
SOB's
SOB's is a live world music venue and restaurant in the Hudson Square neighborhood of Manhattan. S.O.B.’s is an abbreviation of Sounds of Brazil. Larry Gold started SOBs in June 1982, and he currently still owns the space. Gold opened the ven ...
in July 2007,
the
National Folk Festival in Butte, Montana in July 2008,
the Planet Arlington World Music festival in Arlington, Virginia, in August 2008,
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...
's Midsummer Night Swing in New York in April 2014
Chicago SummerDance and two other festivals in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois in July 2014,
the
LACMA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 1961, ...
's "Latin Sounds" series of summer concerts in September 2018, and the North Carolina Folk Festival in September 2019.
Assessments and significance
Critic
Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...
described Lemvo's appeal, saying, "In five different non-English languages he invites cousin after cousin into the extended family--from boogaloo to rumba, bolero to son--and defines the groove they share with his own contained dynamics."
[Robert Christgau]
Consumer Guide reviews
Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca (2007). Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles (born October 25, 1953) is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of ''The New York Times''.New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' capsule review of the 2007 album ''Isabella'', wrote that "While Mr. Lemvo sings in a honeyed Congolese croon, the styles on “Isabela” bounce back and forth across the Atlantic in separate songs: Cuban charanga, Angolan kizomba, boogaloo, Congolese soukous. Mr. Lemvo wrote most of the songs — though not the bolero in Turkish — and his fusions are supple, never forced."
A ''
Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' profile notes how Lemvo's music brings to life the idea, championed by scholars including
Robert Farris Thompson
Robert Farris Thompson (December 30, 1932 – November 29, 2021) was an American art historian and writer who specialized in Africa and the Afro-Atlantic world. He was a member of the faculty at Yale University from 1965 to his retirement more ...
and
Paul Gilroy
Paul Gilroy (born 16 February 1956) is an English sociologist and cultural studies scholar who is the founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at University College, London (UCL). Gilroy is the 2019 ...
, of the Black Atlantic, "the centuries-old exchange of rhythm and culture that began with the Middle Passage, when slaves brought their sounds to Cuba and Haiti."
In an essay in which he calls attention to Lemvo, anthropologist
Bob W. White describes Congolese rumba in terms of "the mind-bending genealogical tale of successive musical waves back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean," how Africans taken to Cuba in the slave trade and their descendants developed rumba, and how Cuban records were played in Congo leading to development of Africanized versions of that music, namely the Congolese rumba and then soukous.
Describing how Lemvo marks another generation of that trans-Atlantic cross-fertilzation, combining those related Cuban and Congolese forms of music, as well as other African-influenced musics of the old and new worlds, into Lemvo's own mix, the scholar and musician
Ned Sublette
Ned Sublette (born 1951 in Lubbock, Texas) is an American composer, musician, record producer, musicologist, historian, and author. Sublette studied Spanish Classical Guitar with Hector Garcia at the University of New Mexico and with Emilio Puj ...
, "an authority on Cuban music and its African roots and branches," said "Ricardo is the only one, right now, looking at the totality of what this is. The entire time I’ve known him, he’s been looking at the big picture."
Discography
Credited artist for all of the following: Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca
*''Tata Masamba'' (Mopiato Music) (1996)
*''
Mambo Yo Yo'' (
Putumayo World Music) (1998)
*''São Salvador'' (Putumayo World Music) (1999)
*"Boom Boom Tarara" (Putumayo World Music)
igipack single(2000)
*''Ay Valeria!'' (Mopiato Music) (2003)
*''Isabela'' (Mopiato Music) (2007)
*''Retrospectiva'' (Mopiato Music)
ompilation(2009)
*''La Rumba SoYo'' (
Cumbancha
Cumbancha is a record label, booking agency and music publisher based in Charlotte, Vermont. The company was founded by ethnomusicologist and music producer Jacob Edgar in 2006. In 2007, Cumbancha Music Publishing was established to expand oppor ...
) (2014)
*''N'dona Ponte'' (Mopiato Music)
igital download(2020)
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lemvo, Ricardo
Salsa musicians
Soukous musicians
Living people
1957 births
Angolan emigrants to the United States
Lawndale High School alumni
People from Kinshasa
Democratic Republic of the Congo people of Angolan descent