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:
“Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.”
—Thomas Beecham (1879–1961)
“The government will ... go on in the highly democratic method of conscripting American manhood for European slaughter.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)