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François Luambo Makiadi—best known simply as Franco—needs no introduction. Guitarist, singer, bandleader, composer, Congo colossus, sorcerer of the guitar, the Grand Maitre.
Together with his band, Tout Puissant Orchestre Kinois Jazz, or TPOK Jazz, he transformed music – combining African sounds, Caribbean rumba and American jazz and R&B into the sweet exuberance, and palpable, contagious optimism, dense polyrhythmic textures and sharp social and political critique of Congolese rumba and soukous.
Twenty three years after his death in Belgium in 1989, DJ Ntone goes crate digging though his massive body of work: nearly two thousand songs, many of them the full length of both sides of an LP, to pay tribute. La Rumba OK!
Preview of TPOK Jazz music below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgZ9GU_HxpI