dance the body music

Lokua Kanza isn’t wearing a madly colourful Afro shirt. Neither is his hair long, braided and stacky. When you ask him about it, he throws his head back and laughs, his gummy smile surprisingly ugly. “I think so, Indian want Osibisa from all African people!” The smile gets uglier. “You listen my song, and say if I African or French. And please don’t say I sound American. You kill my soul.”
And soul he has loads of. His voice seems to come from inside my own head. Crystal clear. Gliding over drum beats. Not even remotely anything but African. Swahili, Lingala, French… none of which I understand. But my hands ache from applauding so much and I’m tired of pretending to be a critiquing connoisseur instead of a grinny fool exploding with happiness at his ‘Mbiffe’ and ‘Salle’.
I quite like him. And he reminded me of Osibisa.

Osibisa had performed in India as one of the first international bands long before I was even born. But the only trip my mind took on hearing 'Osibisa' was to Diwali.
After two days of revelling with tappaas (crackers), sur-sur-bhatthi (sparklers) and 100-walas, we used to sweep up all the half-exploded-crackers in a pile, and throw in some bijilis. It was our very own bonfire. And it was always higher and hotter than the bonfires on any other lanes in the locality. As it crackled and spit sparks out at us, we pranced around it, chanting “Osibisa… osibisa”, the ‘Osi’ powerful and the ‘bisa’ in a whisper. No one questioned what the hell we were saying. We had no clue it was the name of a band that defined world music. It just sounded tribal enough to use in a victory dance for Diwali.
Come to think of it, it’s almost scary how much this city has absorbed.