Fulu Miziki
"It's a real shock, a jolt that will set the crowd ablaze!"
A telluric tremor, a raw invention that transforms waste into sonic gold. African masks like totems, instruments cobbled together from garbage cans, and suddenly the stage becomes a futuristic ritual. Their aesthetic is total: visual, sonic, tribal. An energy that doesn't copy anything, that doesn't try to resemble, but that invents. Afro-futurism punk, explosive pulsations, a parallel world where recycling becomes creation, where every vibration is a rebirth. FULU MIZIKI is Kinshasa on fire and dancing, an electric trance bursting with life.
PROG IS SOMETIMES JUST A PHIL...
Where and when did you first hear it?
A late discovery, almost incomprehensible given that they've been touring for years. And right away, it was obvious: a strong aesthetic, crazy looks, a striking scenography. Instruments made from salvaged materials, 100% recycled, 100% Afro. Less electro than Kokoko, more tribal, more visceral. Even without having seen them live, the certainty is obvious: a sound that holds up (even in the mountains), that's bursting with energy and that's bound to make its way to the festival.
Their music in 3 words, or more...?
Raw. Tribal. Explosive. Their cobbled-together instruments retain the roughness of the material, offering an authenticity that's unprecedented and unfiltered. Their pulse summons up bodies and spirits, an ancestral restlessness that surpasses our mere words. And the energy that touches like a discharge, setting the stage and crowd ablaze with a joyously incandescent future.
If this were the soundtrack to a daydream, what would it sound like?
We're in a bar-club in Kinshasa, the bar is made of trestles and you can almost hear the generator coughing as the artists catch their breath under the masks. The heat, the crowd, the electricity in the air. It's a vibrancy, a heat, a craziness that you just don't find in Europe anymore. Condensed into every beat, an intensity that consumes and uplifts.
Any anecdotes about Line-up 's career?
I discovered them through a friend who programmed the Cully Jazz festival, and it immediately gave me the idea and the desire to go further with them, whatever the constraints. Seriously, when you see what they're capable of tinkering with and producing, when you hear the sound they invent and share with energy and desire as their only means... you tell yourself that you have no right to let yourself be held back or discouraged by minor technical or logistical obstacles. With them and for them, anything is possible, and in the end it's impossible to ignore!