Rebecca m'Boungou/Kolinga

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I'm Rebecca, I'm the lead singer and composer of the band Kolinga. I was born in France, in the southwest, in the Basque country. My mother is from France and my father is from Congo, Brazzaville, and I live in France. Voila!

Kolinga means, without the accent in the “i,” to love, and with the accent it means “the link between things and between between people in general.” And I think the project really embodies this meaning. because it's the link between different cultures and we are a live band, you know, so we really love to be on stage and to share with the public. It's really our thing. I think it's really the thing of Kolinga.

I write my songs in English, French and Lingala. I've started to write in English And I am not legitimate to write in English at all because my English is very bad, but you know, it's all over the world. And in France, we are influenced by American and Anglo-Saxon culture. So mostly of the songs I've heard were in English. So naturally it's like it's part of my culture, my musical culture. So instinctively and naturally it came to me to write a song. And also because I really, really, really love the sonority of English. It's fluid, it's beautiful, it's very, very melodic. And later I've started to write in French for the first time. And I think it's really, really difficult to write in French because we have to know how to make it sound good. And I think it's more difficult than English or Lingala. And I don't speak Lingala because my father never teach me this language, and even if I tried to learn it's really really difficult because I have no one to talk Lingala with. So I cannot have a conversation in Lingala, but it's a language I've always heard in songs that reminds me my other culture. It's really important to me to sing in Lingala because it's a way for me to speak this language and to speak, to feel the music and the culture of Congo.

But this is funny because I wrote in English, but I don't speak English very well. I wrote in Lingala and I don't speak Lingala. And I have a very few songs in French, that is the only language that I can speak with. So yeah, you can see the complexity of my conflicts. Yeah.

So here's my story, the beginning of my story, how I came here. The story begins with my mother. One day she saw a Congolese band named m'Bamina, and m'Bamina means lightning. And it was love at first sight with this culture and this music. And she wanted to go to their country. And so this summer after that she went to Congo for the first time. And she meets a lot of artists, singer, dancer – and I don't know how she did it – but she became the first white woman to dance and sing in the National Ballet. And from there, she did a lot of TV shows, a lot of concerts, a lot of tours. And she met my father, who was also a very known artist in his country, his name was Angelou Chevauché. People always compared his voice to Papa Wemba. And my parents fell in love and they came to France and gave birth to me.

And when she came back to France, my mom, she was the first to teach traditional Congolese dance in the Basque country. And every year she creates with students a show and all the money of the show were sent to Brazzaville for helping the orphans of war and many people there.

So my parents divorced when I was four and I grew up with my mom. And my father, I was in touch, but I didn't grew up with him. He was not very there for me. And I don't know, maybe it's because of his own trauma and sadness about his country, but he didn't teach me much about his culture or memories or his life in Congo. That's why I'm very grateful towards my mom. Yeah, if my mom didn't teach me all this culture, I will feel very disconnected about my African roots. So yeah, I'm very very grateful for that. Yeah.

I think growing up, I choose to create my own identity. When I was a child, My mother brought me to Africa, not to Congo for the first time, because there was a civil war, but she brought me to Guinea, Conakry. And when I was 12, I went to Congo. So I had the chance to meet this culture, those people. And it was just the end of the war, but I have zero memories. Because I think It was like, yeah, a shock and even a trauma for me. I've listened to a lot of stories of civil war, horrible stories, but I was already aware of all that reality because my mom told me stories about that.

But I lost my innocence or something very, very early because when you are a child you are already aware that some people can kill another people just because they are a different ethnic or beliefs or religion or something like that. It was a big lesson to me because when I was growing up in France and when I went to Congo I've seen different realities from mine, and this mindset never left me.

I think it's really important to me to see that there is always something positive, even if in the worst situation, you know. Because when you are confronted with a reality really more difficult than yours. The only thing you can say is you are very, very lucky. And I think it's the biggest lesson the Congo gave me, yeah.

In my school, I was the only black girl, but I was really really accepted as French little girl. But I'm a black woman, so they saw that I was different than them. And one day, a little boy said to me: “Aren't you ashamed to be the only black in the school?” So, you know, I laugh at him. I thought it was funny because I thought this question was absurd. So, yeah, I laugh to his face. But I felt really accepted in the Basque country I think it's my home.

So I released a video of one of my songs called Nguya Na Ngai. It means “my power,” and it's about the power of women. And in the comments. a woman accused me of appropriation and criticized me for not having more dark skin dancer than me. And I think her words where: “There is not a black woman in this video.” I Live in France and statistically, there are a fewer dark-skinned black women. I wanted dancers with a particular style in the video. I take people I've met in life, people I know, and there are three of us with the same skin color as me. But the comments of that woman is she doesn't consider us black. And yeah, I think It's funny, because between me not being black enough for this woman and the kid at my school asking me if I wasn't ashamed of being the only black girl in the school, once again it creates an identity conflict. And I think it's just the reality of mixed people like me.

But for me, the solution is to ask myself about the situation and to see that we all are with our struggles of identity. But yeah, of course, in an ideal world, the color is meaningless, but unfortunately, it isn't the reality. So in a way, I really understand the comments of that woman because, yeah, I don't experience racism like people who has darker skin than me, but people who has lighter skin than me don't experience racism like me too. So more you are black, more you experience racism. And that is tragic and it has to change.

I ask myself many questions about that about appropriation – am I legitimate to talk about Congo? To talk about this culture? Because, yeah, I'm Congolese by my father, but I live in France. So, yeah, I still don't know. It's mine, but I'm not experiencing the same realities with my Congolese fellows, you know. So yeah I don't know.

I think those questions are really in my own head. Never someone told me “you are not legitimate.” No. All I have in return from other Congolese artists or African artists is very positive, you know. But yeah, I wonder if as a French and half-white woman. I have a bigger space than a black Congolese woman in Brazzaville, you know. So I am always between two realities. There is a reality of me being proud to represent Congo, and subjects of freedom and emancipation of a culture, of a country. And the other reality is, am I the right person to talk about that? Because maybe I take place of a Congolese person who will talk about that better than me.

When my mom was in Congo, she liked to say that her ancestors came there to take and she came there to learn, to learn the culture and to live like them. And in French we say “Je suis pas venue pour prendre, je suis venue pour apprendre.” I think in the '80s, I don't know if we were talking about cultural appropriation like nowadays. But in those times, in Congo, there were very, very flattered, because the lack of respect for all those culture and tradition was huge. So when they saw a white, French woman respect and honor their culture and tradition, they were really, really flattered. I don't know if it will be the same now, you know, with all the reflections about appropriation. And I think those reflections are really fair. But 40 years ago, it was not the same reflection, I think.

I don't know if my songs can help other people, or even if my songs are useful, but writing it helps me. Because I live in a world where my values aren't represented and it's sometimes hard not to be pessimistic about that. I think writing those songs helps me to understand my own identity and the conflicts of my identity, because, yeah, there is the Congolese part with its history and the French part with its history, and the link between those two are not very beautiful. And when I was a teenager, I had this feeling that a part of me has killed the other part of me with slavery, colonization, and all that. But I think it helps me understand that all those parts are in us, in every single people, you know? There isn't the good ones and the bad ones. We all have both in us. Because I think it isn't the story of France and the history of Congo – it's the history of humanity.

When I wrote songs with those values of solidarity, it's like I do my part and I feel better in this world because I'm not just another pessimistic human being in this world because I try to do better. So I think it helped me. But I have beautiful returns about those songs and some people said to me that my song helped them too. And I think it's a more beautiful present to me when people said that to me.