If journalism had not kidnapped me, I would have become an artist-musician or a boxer (Michel Mboungou-Kiongo)

If journalism hadn’t kidnapped me, I would have become an artist-musician or a boxer. Because these are two major arts that transport me beyond my human condition, wrote Michel Mboungou-Kiongo, former CEO of Télé Congo (1994-1997), on his Facebook page.

“I grew up in music. Already as a child, all my brothers and all my sisters lived fully in music. One of my sisters had a conductor as her husband: Ok Band. The whole orchestra and the musicians lived with us. Our father had allowed them.

As a child, I played with all the musical instruments. I became interested in the flute, then in the guitar. I know most musical instruments. I was rocked by the rumba of the 1950s and 1960s. Because one of my older brothers, Mahoungou, had left for the other side of the Congo River when he was 20 years old. So much so that his new adopted homeland has caused an almost mythical country effect, both distant and close in our hearts.

Because, in silence, but in a burst of love for this brother who had left and was almost lost for the family, each of us dreamed, in secret, in his thoughts most madly disturbed by this long silent absence, that he would return a day. And I, and probably many of them, cherished in the hollow of my childish heart, what is more the youngest of the siblings, the muana nsuka, the dream of one day going to visit this country to find this brother who had left far from home. family, and who we missed so much.

There, he had married a woman and had two children. The eldest was a girl to whom he gave our mother’s name, Bouanga. The second was a boy. He had sent us a family photo on which we could see how he had become, his wife their first child in his arms. The girl was obviously about six months old.

He had never returned to Congo Brazzaville. So Congo Léopoldville became a second adopted homeland for our family. All the sounds of Congo Léo were present in our family.

We listened to the music from there, the one that came from the left bank of the majestic Congo River, carrying all the common sociological and cultural denominators along this great corridor of life, whose silt I wanted to create a bridge between these two closest capitals in the world, barely separated by the Malebo pool, a tongue of water less than five kilometers in some places of the second most powerful river in the world.

As a teenager, I discovered pop music and Rock’n Roll. I listened to French varieties, but especially pop, soul and jazz. I knew all the musicians produced by Motown. Then I fell into Puerto Rican and Cuban salsa whose big names had exotic sounds like Johnny Pacheco, Celia Cruz, Jose Chambo, etc. There followed the episode of Haitian music with the smashing success of groups like Shleu-Shleu… Then it was the Reggae wave with Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, etc. I had the overwhelming experience of South African music. And there, Myriam Makeba was The revelation.

On leaving high school, entering the world of work and pursuing university studies, I encountered the West African musical universe. I liked the music of Salif Keïta, the Amazons of the Guinean army, Bella Belo, Youssou N’Dour, Baba Male, Francis Bebey, Manu Dibango, Eboa Lotin, Youssou Ndour, Baba Male, etc.

During my stay in France, I was caught in the face by the tsunami of West Indian music with the Kassav. It was stunning and intoxicating. How not to be happy bathing in such a torrent of sunny sensuality in a country where the cold even froze the water in the pipes! But nirvana was love. I was in love. I was thrilled. Even the frozen snow of the winter of 1984 could not deter me.

It was in this cold atmosphere but with the warm atmospheres of love that I encountered classical music: Hendel, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Pachelbel, and many other bearers of exquisite symphonies widened my musical horizon and opened my mind to artistic universality. I felt complete. I felt strong like a rock.

In fact, if journalism hadn’t kidnapped me, I would have become an artist-musician or a boxer. Because these are two major arts that transport me beyond my human condition”.

Michel Mboungou-Kiongo former CEO of Télé Congo (1994-1997)

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If journalism had not kidnapped me, I would have become an artist-musician or a boxer (Michel Mboungou-Kiongo)


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