Sam Mangwana
b. 18 July 1945, Kinshasa, Zaire. A protege of Rochereau and Franco, vocalist and composer Mangwana is one of Zaire's least conventional stars. He is known as Le Pigeon Voyageur, the travelling pigeon, a musician who constantly travels, side-stepping the usual stereotypes. Big stars have regular bands—Mangwana has none. They buy hotels, houses, clubs—Mangwana places no value on them. In Zaire, he stays with friends. His career has provoked controversy, rumour and violence—plus a new Zairean style which mixes the rumba with beguine and gives a distinctive Afro-Antillean mixture. 
He started his career with a five-year stint with Rochereau, before leaving for L'Orchestre Maquisards. In 1969, after several hits, including Zelangaina Sala, the band folded. Mangwana formed Vox Afrique, with Dalienst, then went solo, working as musical director and arranger for Rochereau, standing in for him during his absences abroad and recording the harmony parts for him in the studio. In 1972, he changed camps and moved to Franco's TPOK Jazz. Such a change caused unheard-of controversy. Rochereau and Franco were considered to be poles apart: they had their own individual styles, and their own fans in opposing camps. The change was simply unthinkable. Mangwana even received threatening letters; he was forced to hide in a hotel guarded by gendarmes. Finally the dispute grew too much for him and, in 1976, he embarked on a tour of Africa which took him from Zaire to Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo, Lome and finally Cote D'lvoire. In the latter country, he formed a band called Amida, with the intention of modernizing Zairean music. When that group fell apart, he formed the African All Stars, with guitarist Syran Mbenza and a large fluctuating membership that included, at various times, Nyboma, Lokassa Ya Mbongo, Syran Mbenza and Bopol (some of whom would later form Les Quatre Etoiles). The new band created a hugely influential new style of soukous. Rather than stick to the old Zairean rumba, African All Stars blended it with highlife, Afrobeat and, above all, biguine, to create a solid Afro-Antilles crossover. The African All Stars, however, ran into problems. When the band performed at a reception for the Zairean Ambassador to Cote D'Ivoire, they were accused of neglecting their own national music and asked to play Zaiko Langa Langa songs. Back in Zaire, the accusation was at first equally pronounced, until the massive hit Georgette Eckins swept such petty-minded nationalism aside and established Mangwana and his band as major stars and stylists. 
Out of the post-Cote D'Ivoire music came a string of hits, each mixing Zairean guitars with a solid beat and a singing style—from the sweetest of tenors to the most swaggering of middle registers—that has become Mangwana's hallmark. Throughout the late '70s, Mangwana remained a vital force on the African scene, influencing such musicians as Quatre Etoiles’ Bopol and Nyboma and Souzy Kasseya. In 1979, Mangwana arrived in Paris with a slimmer line-up of Syran, Bopol and Pablo. He re-recorded Georgette Eckins and cut the album MARIA TEBBO, which mixed the tenderness of the title track with the political exultation of Chimurenga Zimbabwe—a celebration of that country's new-found independence. In 1982, Mangwana travelled to southern Africa to throw himself further into the great political struggles of the region. In 1982, he released CO-OPERATION with Franco, and joined him onstage at a concert in Kinshasa. Politically, Mangwana has shown himself as a strong champion of African liberation, through albums like 1983's CANTA MOCAMBIQUE, which he recorded as a tribute and an encouragement to the revolution that had ousted the Portuguese in favour of a new, independent Mozambique. He continues his peripatetic career across Africa and Europe, constantly re-energizing his bands with infusions of young, radical musicians.