Baloji

Baloji is an artist in motion, a musician, poet, film director, a man of images and ideas. He’s in motion like the inhabitants of Avenue Kaniama in Lubumbashi. In motion like the synthetic Afrobeats he produces, the fruit of an unlikely alliance between rockrumba and futurist funk. In perpetual motion, like his limbs on stage as he fronts the Kaniama Show band, leading them in a sensual voodoo trance. 137 Avenue Kaniama is Baloji’s third album. Baloji means ‘man of science’ in Swahili, but during the colonial period that meaning shifted as a result of Christian evangelisation, to signify ‘man of the occult sciences’ and then ‘sorcerer’. He is full of wonders. His live shows are spectacular, joyful celebrations.