Dylan Williams investigates Staff Benda Bilili

How far removed from the Afro-tinged, high-society capers of Vampire Weekend can you get?

Try Staff Bendi Bilili - a Congolese band led by a polio-crippled trio that consists largely of sheges (street kids) recruited from busking spots around Kinshasa’s dilapidated zoo. Considering the incredible deprivation surrounding the band, it’s amazing that there’s no trace of self-pity in their rumba/funk fusion. But that’s the real message of their album Trés Trés Fort, as singer Ricky explains.

“You have to be ‘very strong’ to survive in the streets of Kinshasa. This album is a tribute to all the people who live in the streets with us. We are the true heroes of the Congo and we are a time bomb.”

The band’s most stunning asset, who exemplifies both Staff’s unique sound and their central tenet of representing Kinshasa’s streets, is Roger; a former shege who plays an improvised satongé (a single-stringed lute fashioned from a tin can and a basket strut). Roger recognises his debt.

“[Before Staff] I was out in the street, I was busking on the markets…now I’ve got a real job- and respect too”.   

The name Staff Benda Bilili translates to “look beyond appearances”. For such an atypical band it’s an apt billing.

As Ricky says, “The only judgement that matters to us is on stage, and we will rock the place wherever it may be”.

So to keep warm this November, I’ll be dancing to Staff’s ‘Moziki’, not Vampire Weekend’s ‘Horchata’.  

Staff Benda Bilili play Fiddlers on 18 November