Music of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

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Congolese music is one of the most influential music forms of the African continent. Since the 1930s, Congolese musicians have had a huge impact on the African musical scene and elsewhere. Many contemporary genres of music, such as Kenyan Benga and Colombian Champeta, have been heavily influenced by Congolese music. In 2021, Congolese rumba joined other living traditions such as Jamaican reggae music and Cuban rumba on UNESCO's "intangible cultural heritage of humanity" list.^[1][2]

Music of the Democratic Republic of the Congo varies in its different forms. Outside Africa, most music from the Democratic Republic of 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 neither is precise nor accurately descriptive.

People from the Congo have no single term for their own music per se, although muziki na biso ("our music") was used until the late 1970s, and now the most common name is ndule, which simply means music in the Lingala language; most songs from the Democratic Republic of the Congo are sung in Lingala.