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Staff Benda Bilili
The Fiddlers, Bristol
Wednesday, November 18
By Tom Spooner
Staff Benda Bilili, whose name translates to ‘look beyond appearances’, are a group of paraplegic musicians from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Comprised of four senior singers/guitarists and a much younger rhythm section of former sheges (street children), Staff Benda Bilili are clearly not your average touring band.
Prior to embarking on this, their first European tour, Staff Benda Bilili’s live performances have almost exclusively taken place in the streets around Kinshasa zoo. As street musicians, they took their passionate vocal harmonies, complex rhythms and educational messages direct to the people.
Released in March this year, the band’s critically-acclaimed debut album, Très Très Fort, mixes Congolese soukous and rumba styles with a strong blues sensibility. There are even aspects of James Brown’s unmistakable funk thrown in for good measure. It shouldn’t work but it most definitely does. There is a unique life-affirming spirit that pervades the album, bringing cohesion to these diverse influences.
The capturing of Staff Benda Bilili’s energy may well have something to with parts of the album being recorded live outside the zoo. On the haunting track Polio, where the band urge parents to inoculate their children against the disease that afflicted them, you can actually hear the toads croaking in the reptile house.
Wednesday’s gig at the Fiddlers promises to be a departure in every sense for Staff Benda Bilili. For us, it is a chance to witness their spirit triumph yet again.
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