6 December 2014
7.30pm
£28.20 / £22.50 / £19.50 (coming soon)
Congolese band Staff Benda Bilili’s exuberant live shows and extraordinary story have caused a stir across the globe and DaDaFest are pleased to bring them to Liverpool.
The band name translates as “look beyond appearances” – literally: “put forward what is hidden”, and Staff Benda Bilili consider themselves the real journalists of Kinshasa; their songs document events relating to their everyday experiences and resonate with the pulse of Congolese rumba, of Cuban swing and, at times, of the Godfather Of Soul himself.
Staff Benda Bilili are a group of street musicians who lived and played around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa. The band’s music consists of powerful rumba-rooted beats, overlaid with vibrant vocals and extraordinary tin-can guitar solos.
Four disabled singer/guitarists form the core of the band and an all-acoustic rhythm section provides the groove-based backbone, over which teenage prodigy Roger Landu lets rip with inimitable solos on a one-string electric lute.
Access: BSL interpretation.
Part of DaDaFest International 8 November – 11 January 2015