Staff Benda Bilili

Last night as you probably know was Comic Relief. The quasi-annual appeal to the British public to donate whatever they can afford to the charity which helps out millions of people; most primarily in Africa.

These appeals are interspersed with short videos of various famous people performing something or other, mostly comedy sketches.

I think what they're doing is amazing and I am over the moon that last night they reached their highest ever total. Despite the credit crunch people know that they're in a far better conditions than a lot of people around the world and showed this by donating last night.

The one thing that I would like to increase on Comic Relief is the exposure of the good things to come out of Africa, not just the bad. Africa has an extremely rich culture and music is one of the facets of it that has been exposed a lot recently with projects such as Africa Express. The level of enthusiasm and interest shown so far in African music is amazing but something on national television going out to tens of millions of viewers could raise it to another level entirely.

And so I think I have found the perfect candidates to play at the next Comic Relief; a band that have come to my attention very recently called Staff Benda Bilili.

Staff Benda Bilili are a group of disabled men from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have been disabled since they contracted Polio in their youth and they now move around on custom made tricycles. Their music is often backed by a group of street orphans and the star of the show is one young boy who shreds on his "satonge": a home made lute that is essentially just a wire and a tin can. It is not just their unique background that makes them stand out; they make fantastic songs too.

Check it out:


I think this is great, but the stuff on their myspace is even better.

There are a few videos on youtube and they also have a myspace. If you like what you hear you should buy their recently released album called 'Très Très Fort' which is available on iTunes now.

Hopefully we'll hear more from them soon; maybe they'll play at Latitude festival?

Rob