Describing the music of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is difficult, due to vagaries surrounding the meanings of various terms. The country itself was formerly called Zaire and is now sometimes referred to as Congo-Kinshasa to distinguish it from the Republic of the Congo (or Congo-Brazzaville). In this article, Congo will refer specifically to the Democratic Republic of the Congo unless otherwise noted. Outside of Africa, most any music from the Congo is called soukous, which most accurately refers instead to a dance popular in the late 1960s. The term rumba or rock-rumba is also used generically to refer to Congolese music, though both words have their own difficulties and neither is very precise nor accurately descriptive. People from the Congo have no term for their own music per se, although they have used muziki na biso (our music)until the late 1970s and now the most common name is "ndule" which simply means music in the lingala dialect. Most songs from the Democratic Republic of the Congo are sung in the "lingala" dialect, mainly because it is the dialect which is the most spoken in the country.
Famous quotes containing the words music, democratic and/or republic:
“The time was once, when thou unurged wouldst vow
That never words were music to thine ear,
That never object pleasing in thine eye,
That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
That never meat sweet-savored in thy taste,
Unless I spake, or looked, or touched, or carved to thee.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“From now on, I think it is safe to predict, neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party will ever nominate for President a candidate without good looks, stage presence, theatrical delivery, and a sense of timing.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September.... But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents—or at least their staffs—never stop making mischief.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)