Henri Bowane - Rhumba in The 50s

Rhumba in The 50s

The success of this new music rested upon the burgeoning radio stations and record industry of late colonial Leopoldville, which often piped music over loudspeakers into the African quarters, called the "Cite". A handful of African clubs (closing early with a 9:30PM curfew for non-Europeans) like "Congo Bar" provided venues, along with occasional gigs at the upscale white clubs of the European quarter, "La ville". The importation of European and American 78 rpm records into Africa in the 30s and 40s (called G.V. Series records) featured much Cuban music, a style that was enjoyed by cosmopolitan Europeans and Africans alike. One writer has argued that this music, sophisticated, based on Africa music, and not produced by white colonialists especially appealed to Africans in general, and newly urban Congolese in particular. Greek and Lebanese merchants, a fixture in colonial Francophone Africa were amongst the first to bring recording and record pressing equipment to tropical Africa. Jéronimidis' "Ngoma" company was one of the first and most successful. Jéronimidis and the musicians, barnstormed around Belgian Congo in a brightly painted Ngoma van, performing and selling records. The music culture this created not only propelled Congolese Rumba to fame, but began to develop a national culture for the first time.

At the beginning of the 1950s, while Wendo remained with Ngoma, Bowane moved on the Jéronimidis' new label, Loningisa. Bowane became the dominant musical influence on the label as he moved out of centre stage and into the role of producer, writer, and owner-impresario of the premier nightclub of Leopoldville, Quint. Bowane is remembered as the most successful African musician of his time: he reputed to have been the first black man in Belgian Congo to own a Cadillac.