for Christmas and it's giving me some fascinating background - I'll post a full review when I've finished it. I've also come across some great sources for Congolese music. A couple of weeks ago I bought the compilation Africa Boogaloo from Honest Jon's records which has some terrific tracks. I've subsequently found more (free) online sources of otherwise unavailable music: it turns out there is an internet subculture of world music obsessives who digitise obscure old vinyl and cassettes. Worldservice is one of the best - I'm currently listening to Jose Missamou's El Salsero de Brazzaville as I type. I particularly like the lyrics where he apologises in Spanish for his linguistic mistakes and says that the rhythm is what's important (in fact his Spanish seems fine as far as I can tell). Another good site is Global Groove where I've just downloaded a retrospective of Orchestre African Fiesta.
Finally, there's some great early Congolese music with historical context on Aboubacar Siddikh's YouTube channel, which also includes a lot of other African music.
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