KIALA

Kiala Nzavotunga is born in Congo-Zaire family roots from Angola. At the age of ten, he moved to Kinshasa, the center of african music with latino-american influences like rumba, meringue and cha-cha-cha. There he played in the boy scout band and he was encouraged to study the guitar. He started playing in local clubs for a while, then he joined the soukouss rumba band Negro Success and later Africa Jazz of Kabassele.

By 1974, he traveled through africa playing, as a guitarist, in Congo, Angola, Gabon, Cameroon, and finally in 1975 in Nigeria. He remained in Nigeria for eight years playing with several groups, Eyes of Man, Black Children, Action Funk Ensemble and Stormers. In 1981, Fela Anikulapo Kuti invited him to join his band, Egypt 80 with whom he recorded on the album Original Sufferhead.

In 1983, Pascal Imbert, Fela s manager suggested that he form a band with some african musicians including Udoh Essiet, Nicholas Avom, Willy N�for, Betty Ayaba and two french musicians, Stephane Blaes and Romain Pugebet. The band Ghetto Blaster was formed and they came to Paris in 1983.

In Europe, Ghetto Blaster immediately began to have some success. They opened for artists such as James Brown, Albert King, Kool and the Gang, Manu Dibango, Kassav� This led to their first record, Preacher Man-Efi Ogunle in 1983, and their first album People with Black Frame Productions - Melodie in 1984 (including the hit Na Waya).
In 1988, they started a US tour, but, because of disagreements about the creative direction the band should take, Ghetto Blaster disbanded.

After the experience playing with Ghetto Blaster, Kiala wanted to explore different musical directions. He started a new group, One Love Connection, and worked on compositions and arrangements based on african music styles such as zebola, a zairean dance music.

In 1989, he met the members of a japanese band called Jagatara. He found a lot of similarities between japanese and african music and became very interested in combining african rhythms and japanese songs. In 1993, he recorded a demo of a japanese traditional called Osaru-no-kagoya, with Kunimoto Kateharu (My Shammy Six). In this recording they used traditional instruments (Kunimoto playing the japanese shamisen and himself playing the zairean likembe).
In 1989-1998, he spent time between Tokyo and Paris writing, composing and playing with One Love Connection and a variety of japanese groups including Vibrastone and Jagatara. In 1995, he wrote the title Mbanza Mpuena for the compilation The Rainbow Colored Lotus, a compilation for the Kobe earthquake in Japan.

Between 2001 and 2003, Kiala worked on an album project for the 20th anniversary of Ghetto Blaster. This album, River Niger, was released in 2003, it allowed the band to come back after few years of silent.

Between 2004 and 2006, he worked with Doctor L, who is very important in the electronic scene. They released the album Psyco � There Must Be A Revolution Somewhere for Mind (2005), in which Kiala is author-compositor and plays likembe, guitar and lead vocal. They toured Europe with Omar Sosa and St�phane Belmondo.

2009 is an important year for him. He started a new project One Race with friends such as Sandra Nkake, Cyril Atef, St�phane Belmondo, Lulendo, Rody Cereyon and the producer Slim Pezin. This allows him to play music from his traditional heritage, African tradition, jazz, blues and funk. In december he signed with the artistic agency DE REMUSAT MANAGEMENT to prepare his new show.

Kiala is back on stage stronger than never! Get ready for Kiala and his afrobeat!