Life on the streets is grim and desperate, said “Business,” a homeless teen in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DR Congo) capital, Kinshasa.
“Your body ends up worn out,” he said, describing a doomed path to limbo, ending up like “a prostitute grandmother, something which isn’t supposed to exist.”
A 19-year-old with big ambitions, Business — a translation of his French street name — is one of several dozen homeless youths who have found refuge in rap.
Photo: AFP
Their haven is Mokili Na Poche, a small cultural center in the working-class district of Bandalungwa that holds out a rare lifeline to Kinshasa’s street children and teenagers — an abandoned population estimated by aid groups to number more than 20,000.
Known locally as shegues, many are pushed onto the streets due to dire poverty, or because their families have accused them of witchcraft.
Their lives are often marked by violence, drugs and prostitution, as well as by deep suspicion from Congolese society.
However, Mokili Na Poche, which opened in November last year, encourages the unschooled homeless youths toward creative pursuits, such as making bags out of scavenged plastic or making music.
Business, whose real name is Junior Mayamba Ngatshwe, is keen to seize any opportunity on offer.
Chadrack Mado, another street-dwelling youngster, said he comes to the center so that “tomorrow I don’t become a kuluna,” referring to the local term for Kinshasa’s notorious machete-wielding gangsters.
The DR Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world despite its vast mineral wealth. About two-thirds of the population of 100 million people live on less than US$2.15 per day, the World Bank said.
A newly built recording studio caters to the musically inclined among the youngsters who visit Mokili Na Poche. Business and his friends are regulars.
“I’m trapped, I’m trapped,” the youngster rapped into the mic in the Lingala language, rhyming about how he had left conflict-torn eastern Congo only to end up on the streets of Kinshasa.
A barefoot 16-year-old known as “Bloodbank” accompanied the song with a rhythm tapped out on a discarded plastic bottle, and beat-boxed through pouted lips.
Business later said that his dream is to follow in the footsteps of Congolese music greats such as Fally Ipupa, drive a fine car and visit the US.
Life on the streets is hard, he said, adding that some homeless youths were supportive, but others tried to undermine him.
“There really are witches among us,” Business said.
However, he is not discouraged.
“Music is something I’ve had since I was in my mother’s womb,” he said.
Congo has a rich musical tradition and some groups, such as Staff Benda Bilili, comprising handicapped people, have risen from the streets of Kinshasa to international prominence.
Several of the people at Mokili Na Poche have already recorded an album, with an adult musician, although they were not paid.
Mokili Na Poche director Cedrick Tshimbalanga said the violence and desperation dominated the lives of youngsters living on the street in Kinshasa.
“All of them have a blade or a pocket knife to protect themselves,” he said. “There are children that go days and days without eating.”
In the courtyard outside the cultural center’s tiny recording studio, several young people with bodies covered in scars rested quietly in the shade.
Few knew their real age, but they appeared to range from about seven or eight years old to adolescents in their late teens.
The music they produce is often upbeat and aggressive, but not violent, Tshimbalanga said.
“They want to rebel against the way society treats them,” he said.
The center has started putting together an album of the rap songs, Tshimbalanga said.
Bloodbank, whose real name is Obed, said that music gave him the motivation to “keep going.”
He said he had been on the streets for as long as he could remember.
When asked about his life, he responded with an impromptu rap in Lingala about how when he has money, he has friends, but when he is broke, he is completely alone.
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