Ricardo Lemvo

The rumba has been back and forth across the Atlantic as often as ships can carry it, but Ricardo Lemvo has added a new touch, bringing himself over from Zaire to play the mix of Cuban and West African sounds in the U.S. Born in Kinshasa, the capital of Zaire (or the Congo as it then was), Lemvo started out by playing in bands that covered American R&B, learning his English phonetically from the song lyrics. But he heard the rumba incessantly on the radio, and also in his cousin's large record collection. The final factor was growing up next to a bar, where the music played al...