Samba Mapangala

Samba Mapangala, born in 1955 in Matadi, Bas Zaire. He is one of the many artists who left Zaire to look for new audiences in East Africa, mainly Kenya and Tanzania. He started learning Music in 1968 from old friend Mzee called "Tinapa" for two years, and left him in good faith in 1969 to form his own band. In late 1969 he formed his own band under the name of La-Lune and released few records in Kinshasa (Zaire). With no finance and nobody to back him, his partners left him, but with great confidence in music he formed another band under the name La-Bariza and again his partners left him for the same financial problems. Courage and confidence told him never to turn beck. He then met with musicians who were determined and had faced more or less the same problems and formed another band The Super Tunika which in 1977 afterwards changed to Les Kinois (The Kinshasans) . Les Kinois broke up in 1981, when Mapangala formed Orchestre Virunga. The band is named after Virunga volcano located in Congo.