Jean Goubald
With his guitar slung across his shoulder, his gaze turned skyward and his feet plunged in the waters of the River Congo, Goubald is silently reinventing Congolese music. His style is based on his warm, clear voice, his peerless technique, the purity of his guitar, and his texts, at once poetical and humorous. This minstrel of the chanson from Kinshasa conjures up a mood of derision, laughter and amusement, to his own charming, piquant recipe. In both French and Lingala, the words and the tone of Jean Goubald have a flavour of Alain Souchon to them… à la sauce kinoise.
What’s more, unprecedentedly, he writes songs which rhyme in Lingala! In most of his pieces, a combination of love and humour feed his creativity and his texts, which bear the stamp of spirituality and truth. This is also the first time that a Congolese musician has looked for inspiration from the East and the Mediterranean for his musical alchemy, and the result is an extraordinary cocktail of rhythms familiar and exotic!
After secondary school, Jean Goubald entered the University of Kinshasa, where he joined the orchestra Phacochère Music. He went on to work closely with such big names in Congolese music as Gérard Madiata, Rochereau Tabu Ley, Kalama Soul, Youlou Mabiala, Mbilia Bel, Tshala Muana, Mopero wa Maloba, the group Zaiko Langa, and most recently Papa Wemba, Koffi Olomide, JB Mpiana and Werrason. He was the big discovery at the L’Autre Musique festival, and then voted discovery of the year in the annual poll of AMCO (the Association of Congolese Music Reviewers) in 2002. Jean Goubald has been a major artist on the Kinshasa scene since the release of his first work, Bombe anatomique, in June 2005.
