DÁ FALA

Antonio Madiata, a player of the lungoyi-ngoyi, or traditional 2-string Kongo fiddle, plays his own composition in Mbanza-Kongo, Angola on July 11, 2012. Videography by Ned Sublette. Ned Sublette’s work in Angola was undertaken with the support of a 2012 Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion, a program of the University of Southern California’s Knight Chair in Media and Religion.

Hip Deep Angola, Part 3: A Spiritual Journey to Mbanza-Kongo by Afropop Worldwide on SoundCloud - Hear the world’s sounds

António Madiata

To make this unprecedented program, producer Ned Sublette traveled to Mbanza-Kongo, the ancient seat of the Kongo empire located in present-day northern Angola, where he spoke to Dr. Bárbaro Martínez Ruiz, professor of art and art history at Stanford. We’ll learn about the simbi, the spirits that Martínez Ruiz describes as “the multiple power of god”; hear Antonio Madiata play the lungoyi-ngoyi, the two-stringed viola of the Kongo court; attend a session of the lumbu, the traditional tribunal of elders; and talk to a traditional healer. With the help of artist-scholar C. Daniel Dawson, we’ll survey Kongo-Ngola culture in the diaspora – in Brasil, Haiti, Cuba, and more. A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY TO MBANZA-KONGO is supported by a 2012 Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion. The fellowship is a program of the University of Southern California’s Knight Chair in Media and Religion.

Hip Deep Angola, Part 3: A Spiritual Journey to Mbanza-Kongo by Afropop Worldwide on SoundCloud - Hear the world’s sounds