Music of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Congolese music incorporates a variety of musical traditions. The traditional music serves as entertainment while expressing customs, emotions, and social values, with each ethnic group developing distinct styles of singing, dancing, and vocal expression, performed at ceremonies including births, marriages, initiations, and funerals. Instruments range from drums and slit gongs used for communication to melodic instruments such as the lamellophone sanza and arched harp. These traditions are characterized by polyrhythmic percussion, pentatonic scales, collective polyphonic singing, improvisation, vocal exclamations, handclapping, and dance. According to Indian writer Vik Sohonie, Congolese rhythms "laid the groundwork for many styles of music across the Atlantic, most notably in Haiti, Cuba, and Brazil. Its guitar styles caressed Africa, inspiring artists from Senegal to Somalia to South Africa to South Sudan".