Who is this Bonga guy ?

[Eddie Punch]

Who is this Bonga guy ? Long distance runner, Benifica player and socio-political singer-musician. I've never heard of him before. Is he still active ?



Country: Angola
Title: Mona Ki Ngi Xica
Artist: Bonga
CD Title: O'Melhor de Bonga
Label: Lusafrica
Cat. Number: 74321 893 842

[Charlie]

Who is this Bonga guy ?

Eddie, check my note under the playlist. He has been a master of two, but not all three, of the activities I credited him with on air.

[Eddie Punch]

Being born in 1943, he'd be 65 years old now. The second link here say that he was still peforming in 2003.

I've found more info here and here


Football, music and a social conscience: What a fantastic combination !

I know that Ruud Gullit once expressed an interest in becoming a reggae preformer and the Malian international footballer Bubacar Diarra stopped to listen to me playing guitar in the street with his family and they all "got into the groove".

I'm playing with the questions "Are musicaily inclined footballers better footballers than footballers who do not give music a high priority in their lives ?" and "Is football a form of music (or ballet) in the right hands or feet ? " I want the answers to be "Yes, of course" of course. Well it's obvious, innit ?

[Charlie]

Football, music and a social conscience: What a fantastic combination !

I'm afraid you are still being misled down the same road I walked, Eddie.

Bonga didn't play football, as I explain in the bulletin for the show, to be found in the African Nations thread (week 4) in this same World Service section

[Eddie Punch]

Oh well not to worry

But footballers that like music must be better footballers than footballers that are totally indifferent to music though

[Dominic]

Being born in 1943, he'd be 65 years old now. The second link here say that he was still peforming in 2003...

He did a short UK tour in 2005 to promote the Maiorais album and played Cargo in London in 2006. Robin Denselow perpetuates the footballing myth in his review (and mistakenly says it was Bonga's first UK tour): http://music.guardian.co.uk/world/livereviews/story/0,,1929163,00.html
Cargo was far from full, but those that were there were very enthusiastic, and Momo's the year before was jumping!

[mike gavin]

Might be of interest to you Bonga fans to know that the albums that established his reputation as a great singer and political thinker - Angola 72 and Angola 74 have been re-issued by Lusafrica as a nicely packaged 2 on 1 CD, distributed in the UK, like all Lusafrica albums. by harmonia mundi. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Angola-72-74-Bo ... 884&sr=8-1)

There was a nice piece about the 72 album in Songlines issue #48, December 2007.
[/img]

[Charlie]

Who is this Bonga guy ? Long distance runner

And just to complete the correction, Eddie, Bonga wasn't a long distance runner but a sprinter. He was Angolan champion at 100, 200 and 400 metres for several years in a row, which led to his being brought to Lisbon where he became an international 400 metre runner for Portugal. Don't trust anything I say, but I think he did it in around 46 seconds, which would still be pretty good now and was very good then.