Rumba in the jungle

摘要

Gasping, a beautiful girl is propelled towards the pit, a heaving mass of 30,000 men. She recoils in panic, arms flailing, arching herself backwards almost to the boards. But, as the beat throbs, resistance is hopeless. On she is drawn, by the omnipotent will of her own thrusting hips. She reaches the edge of the stage, and the tempo soars. The dancer is transformed. Ecstasy grips her. Howling, she grabs fistfuls of air, writhing in a blur of blue latex and spangled fur. The song peaks. The dancer makes a last bone-juddering lunge, freezes, and then staggers drunkenly off to the wings. In the pit, or rather, on the pitch of Kinshasa's main football stadium, thousands of half-lit faces are roaring. Your correspondent discovers that he has dropped his pen. Congolese music is sexy. Whether the improvised part of a traditional rumba, or the dizzying climax to a modern "ndom-bolo" dance number, its rhythms invariably recall the carnal deed. Cameroon's prim government tried to ban the ndom-bolo dance-which is slightly less risque than the thrusting dancer's routine, even though performed in groups-on the ground that it was sexually suggestive.