which in the 80s and 90s built its atypical modernity in an urbanization often di cult to understand , where misery happily rubbed shoulders with the excesses of the African bourgeoisie in capitals such as Kinshasa , Nairobi or Abidjan . This duality between splendor and elementary need had only one link : seeking wellbeing among the rich as well as the poor that the music of Tshala Muana brought together , her music like the tropical rain that falls on the slums as well as on the upscale neighborhoods was distilled under all the roofs . Tshala Muana , whose real name was Elisabeth Muana Muidikayi , was born on May 13 , 1958 in Lubumbashi , then part of the Belgian Congo , today the Democratic Republic of the Congo . She was the second of ten children born to Amadeus Muidikayi , a soldier , and Alphonsine Bambiwa Tumba , a housewife . In 1964 , when Muana Muidikayi was 6 years old , her father was assassinated . She was raised then by her mother , who died in 2005 . As the magazine Jeune Afrique wrote in an article celebrating her memory , she was , with M ' Bilia Bell and Barbara Kanam , among the last guardians of the temple of rumba and a certain Congolese folklore . Quoting Ossinonde and André Yoka Lye , respectively music columnist and professor at the National Institute of Arts in Kinshasa who knew her when she was writing her legend in the 80s . The pan-African magazine writes : " But it was when she joined the Society of Composers of the Republic of Congo , of which I was one of the project managers , that I really approached her : a real lioness on stage . , she was only sweetness and humility when we rubbed shoulders with her , states André Yoka Lye . Many still remember this clip which animated the evenings on African television , Tshala Muana , strapped in an outfit that molded her to perfection , singing one of her favorite titles “ cicatrice d ’ amour ” ( scar of love ) in front of an audience of high ranked African personalities . Tshala Muana like a feline on stage smoothly connected movements of her pelvis , daring moves , in front of the Heads of State and Government of CEAO and WAMU organized in Yamoussoukro , the Ivorian political capital .
The scene , filmed in December 1982 , illustrated the irreversible rise in the African charts of the Zairian . A singer who will make known the Mutuashi of her native Kasaï to the 4 corners of the world . Tshala Muana will really come out of the shadows some time before this performance when she participates in La Nuit des stars in Abidjan alongside the very popular Ernesto Djedje and Jimmy Hyacinthe . It was while performing for the latter as an “ American star ” – as it was said at the time in regards to artists performing first parts ( opening act ) – that she suddenly came out of the shadows in August 1981 . “ The voluptuous swaying , the suggestive rolling of her buttocks and her abs electrify the room . We have never seen that here , " described the magazine Jeune Afrique in the 80 ’ s . Tshala Muana o cially began her career in 1977 . She began a life of artistic peregrination which took her to Côte d ' Ivoire , from Nigeria , after a stay in the Central African Republic where she had begun her journey after deciding to leave the shores of the Congo River and its capital Kinshasa . There , the native of Elisabethville ( today Lubumbashi ) tried her luck as a dancer first during o cial demonstrations of the political party in power , for what she called " revolutionary dance ", then she worked with di erent artists : Tabu Ley Rochereau , Franco but above all the singers M ' Pongo Love and Abeti Masikini , two female rumba figures . She also made a passage in the Minzoto Wella-Wella orchestra supervised by an atypical Belgian catholic priest nicknamed Father Bu alo , as well as with Rachid King ( from whom she would later borrow the song Zaire ). Taking the microphone will tempt her , but of the few 45 turns that she says to have recorded at that time , there are no trace . " When I started singing in Zaire , I did it with a long dress , without dancing , but people weren ' t interested ," she admitted in 1987 in the Calao magazine distributed in French cultural centers . In Abidjan , she therefore decided to combine the two . Immediate e ect ! Daughter of a traditional dancer , she explains that she has done nothing more than seize the folklore of her home , present on the B side of her first maxi 45 rpm for which she went to Paris . The immediate commercial success finds a particular - and massive - echo ! – in the local press : " The inconvenient star ", headlines the weekly Ivoire Dimanche in October 1982 ,
30 Flashmag ! Issue 136 December 2022