Kongo! Remember who you are...

Panafrican Artist Queen Lilas is releasing her new album called Tiya.

Kongo, remember who you are!! is a powerful statement made by Queen Lilas on "Ayibobo", the fifth track of her new album titled "Tiya", which means Fire. The song uses traditional Congolese sounds and the chant of Pygmies in the background, who are one of the most ancient people group on earth still dwelling in the African rainforest in Northern Congo. The song is a tribute to the pionnering spirit and courage of the nation of Hayiti at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Inspired by their bravery, Queen Lilas calls out the nation of * Kongo to rise in power, as Haiti did.

In fact, Queen Lilas' third full-length album is a magnificent tribute to the culture and the spirit of the people of Kongo, a formidable nation whose three pillars were based on spirituality, science and politics. You found your place and purpose within the nation through initiation. Nothing was left to chance.

Queen Lilas testifies of her own spiritual awakening on Track 11 titled "I love me", which is melodically divine, sung in Lingala and English. In track 12, featuring a young Ivorian artist, Sinai, Queen Lilas talks about the power of her melanine, also echoed in her interlude. In Track 6, she honours the divinity Mama Nkossi, known as Sekmet in Ancient Egypt, who was represented as the lion-headed fire or Sun Goddess associated with war. In track 9, she praises the greatness of Patrice Lumumba, the first DRC Congolese Prime Minister and Independence leader who was savagely murdered by Western powers in 1961.

Culture intertwines with the traditional instruments creating deep sounds carrying Queen Lilas' distinctive vibrato. Track 10, Nkumba, is a Rumba Congolaise track with the guitars played by the legendary Mbokalia BurkinaFaso from Wenge Musica, one of the most famous Soukous bank of the 80s and the 90s, explaining the origins of the sound and its expansion through Africans forced into slavery, who sang on the plantations to find their way back to their homeland.

With this album, Queen Lilas showcases her musical genius, playing most of the instruments, as her mentor Papa Fela Kuti did and their whole lineage. Moreover, she also is the composer, the arranger and a powerful voice to expose the issues in her homeland. She is calling her people to wake up and understand their history and purpose at a time where Congo DRC is torn apart. As Queen Lilas shares "the knowledge of self is the only way to be free in your mind and spirit and finally become the person you are meant to be for yourself and your nation".

Click below to get your copy of Queen Lilas' new album TIYA.

* The Kingdom of Kongo was a kingdom of Central Africa founded in the 14th century, which ruled up to 1888, when Pedro V of Kongo signed a treaty of vasselage over to Portugal. Eventually the title of King of Kongo was abolished by Portuguese rule in 1914.

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