Brussels’ Super Rumba orchestra is about to shake the city to its core with eight exceptional artists who’ve played alongside Congolese rumba legends like Franco, Papa Wemba, Tabu Ley and Fally Ipupa. Pure joy and passion, hypnotic grooves and rhythms that make it impossible to stand still, every Super Rumba show is a celebration. On December 10th, they’ll do what they do best: bring Congolese rumba roaring back to life in all its irresistible, burning glory.
Those who’ve seen them describe it as time travel, a dazzling journey back to the 60s and 70s, a wave of nostalgia bringing back the songs that shaped an entire generation. The guitars soar, the basslines get even the most rhythmically challenged moving and Super Rumba leaves no one unmoved.
From the vast territories of the Kongo kingdom to the port of Havana, from the banks of the Congo River to the streets of Matonge, through the independence of 1960, the American Super Bowl, Colombia and Japan, Congolese rumba has taken the world by storm. A music of celebration and dance, but also of resistance, protest and emancipation, rumba pulses to the rhythm of Congolese society in both joy and sorrow.
On International Human Rights Day, this concert takes on special meaning. Since the 1990s, conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed nearly 6 million lives and displaced at least 4 million people. All while the international community and mainstream media largely look away. When the world turns its back, music refuses to stay silent. This concert is both celebration and protest.
Part of the evening’s proceeds will go to Brussels-based association Gün Günna, active in North Kivu at the heart of the conflict zone. There, Carole Donys and her team have built a school serving 200 students, an orphanage for 45 children aged 0 to 17 and established a program that feeds 150 of the most vulnerable children every single day.
On December 10th, come dance, make noise and refuse silence.
Buy a solidarity ticket at €30 in presale, and €12 goes directly to Gün Günna. Buy a regular presale ticket at €18 and €2 goes to the association. Your concert ticket changes a life, funds meals, notebooks, shelter and gives a child the chance to grow up.