Music of The Democratic Republic of The Congo

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.