Bonga

José Adelino Barceló de Carvalho, known as “Zeca” and famous under the name Bonga, is an iconic figure of African music and Angola's anti-colonial struggle. Born in Bengo in 1942, he grew up in the musseques of Luanda, where at fifteen he founded his first folk group, Kissueia. Having moved to Lisbon in the 1960s to run for Benfica, he became Portugal's record-holder and national champion in the 400 metres. Taking advantage of the freedom of movement granted by his sporting career, he led a double life as a clandestine courier for the MPLA movement under the name Bonga Kwenda. Caught by the secret police PIDE in 1972, he abandoned athletics and fled to Rotterdam, where he recorded “Angola 72”, a landmark album sung in Kimbundu and driven by the dikanza scraper. Banned by the colonial regime, the album circulated clandestinely on cassette, becoming the soundtrack to Angola's liberation in 1975. Critical of the corruption of the new post-independence government, Bonga chose a second exile in Lisbon. From there he built a world-class, fifty-year career as an ambassador for semba, releasing more than thirty celebrated albums (including “Angola 74”). In 2018, after decades of censorship, he was awarded the Medal of Civic Merit in his homeland, sealing his historic rehabilitation.