Madilu System

Jean de Dieu Bialu Makiese, known to a continent as Madilu System, was born on the twenty-eighth of May 1950 at Kisantu, in the Bas-Congo (today Kongo Central), then part of the Belgian Congo. He carried the Kongo heritage of that river country into a voice that would define an era of Congolese rumba.

He came up through the orchestras of the late 1960s and early 1970s — Symba, Bamboula under the guitarist Papa Noël, the Festival des Maquisards led by Sam Mangwana, and Fiesta Popular — learning his craft in the crowded bandstands of Kinshasa before the greatest of them called for him.

That call came from Franco Luambo Makiadi. Joining the mighty T.P.O.K. Jazz around 1980, Madilu became the ensemble's brightest vocal presence, and the 1984 hit "Mamou (Tu Vois)" made him a star. When Franco died in 1989, Madilu helped hold the orchestra together, then built an enduring solo career, keeping his vast Kinshasa following even while living in Paris and Geneva.

Returning to Kinshasa in August 2007 to film new work, he collapsed and died on the eleventh of that month at the city's university clinic. Le Grand Ninja, the voice that carried Congolese rumba across the generations, is honored here — his song still crossing every border he ever sang past.