The Rumba Kings (2018)

Congo's real treasure does not lie underground

The Rumba Kings is a documentary that unveils the brighter and ignored side of a country that the mass media has always associated with rape, war, poverty and corruption: The Democratic Republic of Congo. The Rumba Kings shows us that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, not so long ago, there were bands and musicians as talented as The Beatles, and as famous in the African continent as The Rolling Stones are in the West. Congo’s capital Kinshasa was the musical center of Africa for more than 30 years. Furthermore, the documentary tells us that Congolese Rumba is disappearing, leaving almost no trace since there are no video archives, no master audio tapes of the best bands and musicians, and not even musical notation documents of the thousands of songs produced in that era.