Artist: Swédé Swédé
CD title: Toleki Bango (Miles Ahead)
Label:Crammed Records
Date: 1991

Occasionally a record appears from an intimately familiar genre with an approach so distinct from the norm that it gives a whole new perspective on the style.

My ongoing schooling in Congolese rumba is based on wanton digestion of all the classic recordings by the pioneers that I can lay hands on, along with healthy doses from the enormous output of their multitudinous offspring.

Yet every time an artist or group approaches rumba from an oblique angle, I find it particularly enriching for my appreciation of the genre. One example is the 1991 CD Toleki Bango, the revved-up Kinshasa folklore group Classic Swédé Swédé, who approached tradition with a soukous attitude.

Their percussive and vocal workout illustrates rumba's folk roots in a way that a field recording could not, and it alters the way one hears all of Congolese popular music.

Robert Ambrose produces "The Rhythm Connection" for public radio, and he writes about African music for The Beat magazine. The curious can reach him by e-mail at rambrose@alaska.net.