Music industry and copyright in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The music industry and copyright in the Democratic Republic of the Congo trace their origins to the late 1940s, when Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) became the central hub of phonographic production in Central Africa. Beginning in 1947 with the establishment of the first record labels such as Olympia, Ngoma, Opika, Loningisa, CEFA (Compagnie d'Énregistrements Folkloriques Africains), and , the city attracted musicians from across the Congo and neighboring territories who recorded songs later pressed in Brussels. These early years saw the emergence of modern Congolese music from its folkloric roots, with pioneering figures such as Antoine Kasongo Kitenge, Antoine Wendo Kolosoy, Henri Bowane, Jean Bosco Mwenda, and Joseph Athanase Tshamala Kabasele (widely known as Le Grand Kallé), who laid the groundwork for Congolese rumba and the country's urban popular music.

During the colonial period, musicians worked under exclusive long-term contracts with Greek and Belgian publishers, who retained control over mechanical and authors' rights. Until the early 1950s, copyright laws were virtually unknown, and artists received only fixed payments for their recordings. The arrival of the SABAM (Société Belge des Auteurs et des Compositeurs) office in Léopoldville in 1953 introduced formal mechanisms for royalty collection and distribution, leading Congolese musicians such as Augustin Moniania "Roitelet", Le Grand Kallé, and Roger Izeidi to join the organization despite opposition from foreign publishers. Efforts to defend musicians' rights intensified with the creation of the Syndicat des Artistes Musiciens Congolais (SAMUCO) in 1956, followed by subsequent unions such as SYNAMCO, UMUZA, and UMUCO, which advocated for better working conditions and the cancellation of restrictive contracts. After Congo's independence in 1960, local musicians gained the freedom to establish their own labels, beginning with Le Grand Kallé's Surboum African Jazz, which inaugurated a new era of Congolese-owned record production. Throughout the following decades, the Congolese music industry continued to expand, accompanied by evolving structures for copyright management. Institutions such as SONECA (1969), SONOCA, and later SOCODA (2011) were created to administer authors' and neighboring rights.