Tres Tres Fort

"One of the most extraordinary albums of the year...gloriously uplifting...their songs are lyrical, thoughtful, remarkably cheerful and occasionally startling."
- The Guardian (5 stars)

"The music is fantastic...creativity and skill in adverse circumstances...This is an essential purchase."
- Evening Standard (5 stars)

Staff Benda Bilili, who've been acclaimed by the likes of Africa Express and Damon Albarn are the latest phenomenon to come out of the Congo. A group of paraplegic street musicians who live in and around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa, they make music of astonishing power and beauty. The band's mesmerising grooves, overlaid with vibrant vocals, mix 70s funk, old Cuban son and mambo with the mellifluous flow of classic Congolese rumba that evoke the golden age of Franco.

Four veteran singer/guitarists sitting on spectacularly customized tricycles are the core of the band, backed by a younger, all-acoustic, rhythm section pounding out tight beats. Over the top of this are weird, infectious guitar-like solos performed by a 17-year-old prodigy on a one-string electric lute he designed and built himself out of a tin can.

Staff Benda Bilili were introduced to the British and US musicians who visited Kinshasa as part of the Africa Express trip in Nov 2007, and won the admiration and hearts of the likes of Massive Attack and Damon Albarn. "That was beautiful", said [Massive Attack's] Robert del Naja, visibly moved. "It was worth coming all this way just to hear that".