Miles From Kinshasa

About

Miles, real name – Vivien Kongolo – may be “miles from Kinshasa”, but the essence of his homeland and roaming persona (his formative years were spent in Paris) seeps into his diasporic sonic expression; his self-styled moniker a play on the rich cultural cache of the capital, Congo. Invoking the history of his birthplace; the francophone appeal of Paris; and the cosmopolitan melting pot of his home in South London, Miles creates hybridised songs that pull from strands in his nomadic life.

Birthing a sultry sound he refers to as ‘rumba-pop’ (“an umbrella term to do whatever the fuck I want”, he told FACT), Miles from Kinshasa’s are the kind of songs that fuel our modern, urban and international lives—tracks to underscore lives led in some imaginary apartment in London, Brooklyn, Berlin, Seoul, Los Angeles, Paris, Lagos, Melbourne, São Paulo. Oozing ’80s-esque synth-pop, rumba beats and full rounded sonics, the ‘No Fair, No Way’ and ‘Pretend’ offer up lightened electronic accents inflected by Miles’ time spent in the DRC and the underground soul, reggae, jazz scenes of London and Paris.