Bonga (musician)

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José Adelino Barceló de Carvalho
Image:Bonga Kwenda.jpg This image is a candidate for speedy deletion. It will be deleted after 2007-03-14.
Background information
Born	1943
Origin	“Porto Quipiri”, Bengo, Angola
Genre(s)	Angolan Folk Music, Semba
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter
Instrument(s)	Vocals, Dikanza
Years active	1972 – Present
Label(s)	Morabeza, Vidisco, Lusafrica

Bonga Kwenda (born José Adelino Barceló de Carvalho), better known as Bonga, is a pop singer and songwriter from Angola. Bonga was born in 1943 in the province of Bengo, and left Angola at age 23 to become an athlete, becoming the Angolan record holder for the 400 metres. He had already begun his singing career at age 15.

Bonga abandoned athletics in 1972, concentrating solely on his music, and immediately became famous in his native country, as well as in Portugal, where he became a hit both with immigrants from the ex-colonies, and Portuguese of both African and European descent. He has released over 30 albums, singing in Portuguese and traditional Angolan languages. His tracks are a mixture of Portuguese folk sounds, semba, kizomba and latin elements.

While Angola was still a Portuguese colony, Bonga was an outspoken supporter of independence. This led him to be exiled from Angola in the early 1970s. It was during this time that he launched his first album, Angola 72.

At this time, Portugal was ruled by the repressive, right-wing Salazar government. During this time Angolans were restricted in every manner possible, including travel. They were also generally denied Portuguese citizenship. Bonga's status as a star athlete allowed him the rare freedom of movement, which he used to carry messages between exiled freedom fighters and compatriots still in Angola. As the movement for independence heated up, Bonga was forced into exile in Rotterdam, where, in 1972, he recorded his first record Angola 72 and adopted the name Bonga Kwenda. A warrant for Bonga's arrest was issued in Angola for the seditious lyrics of the album, forcing him to move nomadically between Germany, Belgium and France until Angola's independence from Portugal in 1975. While in Europe, Bonga met other Portuguese-speaking musicians and adopted the sounds of Samba into his already diverse music style.

After independence, the new Angolan government took Angola's best solo acts and founded and supported an orchestra called "Semba Tropical" . The purpose was to revive the lost music industry described by a ministry spokesman during the bands tour in Europe in the mid-1980's: "We had great problems because of the war for independence. When the Portuguese left they dismantled some of the basic structure by smashing and sabotaging equipment and we had to start from scratch. After independence there were no bands at all. Those which were formed were not active because they had no instruments."

After Angola's independence Bonga had established residences in Lisbon, Paris and Angola. As post-colonial life in Angola disintegrated into corruption, squalor, brutality, and an interminable and bloody civil war, Bonga has remained critical of the political leaders on all sides. Bonga's voice of peace and conscience continues to make him a hero to the people of Angola no matter where he resides. He remains fiercely dedicated to the ideal of nonviolence, he states simply: "We must live without harming others".