The Unsung Icon, Pepe Kalle

THE UNSUNG MUSICAL ICON

PEPE KALE

Biography 
CONGO, Democratic Republic of Pépé Kallé, sometimes written as Pepe Kalle (November 30, 1951 – November 28, 1998) was a leading soukous singer, musician, and bandleader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Pépé Kallé was born Kabasele Yampanya in Kinshasa (then Léopoldville) in the Belgian Congo, but later assumed his pseudonym in hommage to his mentor, Le Grand Kallé.

With a multi-octave vocal range and a dynamic stage presence, the 190 cm (6 ft 3 in) and 136 kg (300 lb) vocalist recorded more than 300 songs and twenty albums during his two-decade-long career. Known affectionately as "the elephant of African music" and "La Bombe Atomique," Kallé entertained audiences with his robust performances.

His musical career started with l'African Jazz, the band of Le Grand Kallé, who was his role model and mentor. He later performed in Bella Bella and became the lead singer of Lipua Lipua, where he sang alongside Nyboma Mwandido. Kalle got his show business break in 1972 while performing with his friends Dilu Dilumona and "Papy Tex" Matolu Dode in a neighborhood band called African Choc. Afrisa drummer Seskain Molenga, on the lookout for musicians to accompany him on surreptitious recordings, introduced African Choc to band leader and producer Verckys Kiamuangana. Molenga and his new recruits recorded a few sides together for Verckys's Vévé label under the name Les Bakuba.

While Les Bakuba languished on Vévé's back burner, Kalle sang backing vocals on several of Verckys's own records including the brilliant "Nakomitunaka" (I ask myself). Kalle joined Bella Bella, another of the label's bands, to sing beside its leader Soki Vangu, and future Quatre Etoilesmember Nyboma Mwan Dido. When Vangu and Verckys parted in 1973, Kalle and Nyboma fronted Bella Bella's replacement, a new band called Lipua Lipua.

Later in 1973, as hope for the future of Les Bakuba faded, Kalle, Dilu, and Papy Tex solicited help from another label to finally get the band up and running. They called it Empire Bakuba because a chief of the Bakuba people had been a big man like Kalle. Kalle, always large for his age, had grown into a giant who towered above six feet and weighed in the neighborhood of 300 pounds. Dubbed the "elephant of Zaire" (as Congo-Kinshasa was then known), he sang with a throaty baritone and cavorted on stage with the agility of a much smaller man.

Empire Bakuba took its name from a Congolese warrior tribe, and it pointedly incorporated rootsy rhythms from the interior, sounds that had long been sidelined by popular rumba. The band was an instant hit, and together with Zaiko Langa Langa, they became Kinshasa's most popular youth band. With hits such as Pépé Kallé's Dadou and Papy Tex's Sango ya Mawa, the band was a constant fixture on the charts. They also created a new dance, the popular kwassa kwassa dance.

A master of publicity, Kalle deployed his exceptional physique to maximum effect, posing in boxing trunks and gloves at the time of the 1974 Muhammad Ali-George Foreman boxing match in Kinshasa and cruising around the capital squeezed behind the wheel of a Volkswagen Beetle. In 1980 he introduced into the act a dancing dwarf named "Emoro" (Tumba Ayila), who often emerged on stage from between Kalle's legs. On their tenth anniversary in 1982, the band was voted Zaire's top group. Throughout the early 1980s, Empire Bakuba continued to tour extensively while releasing no less than four albums a year. By the mid-eighties, they had a large following throughout Francophone Central and West Africa.

Kalle was quick to embrace soukous, the up-tempo rumba produced by Paris-based Congolese, which helped lead to its acceptance in Kinshasa. His songs often discussed a serious topic even as they beckoned listeners onto the dance floor. "Dadou" from the late seventies talked of a family's difficulties brought on by an absent father. "Mister John" (1985) cautioned against ridiculing a person who has fallen on hard times. Although Empire Bakuba was his principal vehicle, Kalle occasionally recorded apart from the band. His soloZouké Zouké(1986) and Moyibi(1988) with Nyboma were both international hits.

Kalle was a grand figure, who endeared himself to his public. Despite the economic devastation that caused most of his colleagues to move abroad, Kalle kept his base in Kinshasa. Although he was the clear leader and dominant star of Empire Bakuba, he displayed little of the ego that usually grew from such status. That his last album was recorded solo may have been a sign of growing problems within the band. Still, for most of his career, Kalle's adherence to an equalitarian philosophy made for a stable group that only came apart after his untimely death following a heart attack on November 28, 1998.

This is a sleeping giant Icon that is less sung but has a significant space on the table of the African Musical Legends. 
May he keep resting in power. His works will forever live.

compiled by The Rhumba_commissioner
 

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