CANADIAN TOUR DATES BEGIN IN 2023
WATCH / SHARE “LUALABA MOTHER” HERE
BUY / STREAM JOSÉ LOUIS AND THE PARADOX OF LOVE HERE
“An endlessly listenable album that combines pop, R&B and electronic music with melodic vocals delivered in Lingala, French, English, Tshiluba and Kikongo." - The New York Times
“A beguiling mix of multilingual Afropop, rhumba and R&B.” - The Guardian
"Kwenders exudes a poetic warmth that's hard to resist." - MOJO
“A wonderland of rich textures.”- CBC Music
"Kwenders isn’t simply blazing a narrow trail here but opening up a cosmos." - PopMatters
PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Mentov (Director) // FULL PRODUCTION CREDITS
Congolese-born, Montreal-based musician, songwriter, and DJ, and Polaris Music Prize winner Pierre Kwenders (he/him) today has shared the short film Lualaba Mother, a cinematic experience on themes of birth and rebirth through experimental narrative structure and imagery. The first of two shorts inspired by his Polaris Prize winning José Louis and the Paradox of Love, Lualaba Mother is a visual exploration of the album’s themes, directed by Robert Mentov and creative directed by Kwenders himself. Interwoven with passages from the album and original score by Alex Nunes, the film is an homage to the maternal figure, bonding the roots of the past with the future, where life and death become one.
“To me, this was to express how important Black African and Caribbean mothers are,” Kwenders says. “The impact they have on us. They are God! The mother is the land of your birth, it’s your culture, it’s all that makes you and it’s also all that makes you question yourself.”
Director Mentov delves further into the material: “Our intention was to explore maternal themes through non-linear storytelling; pushing the threshold of the visuals that we created to capture the stages of a boy’s life. Through the use of celluloid we intended to set up an abstract world of darkness and light that reflects the journey along the veins of the river; the place where there is no sun.”
Motivated by the intricacies of love, the songs of José Louis And The Paradox Of Love weave together narratives from memories of the past, sketches of Kwenders’ hometown, and reflections on the future. A storyteller at his core, Kwenders has dedicated the heart of his creation to the life-giving force of motherhood, and his journey to discover his own identity: “This is for all the kids from the diaspora,” he said in his Polaris acceptance speech. “This is my story. This is my African story, my Congolese story, my Canadian story. This is your story if you want to take it as yours.” With José Louis and the Paradox of Love, Kwenders arrives at a new juncture – a moment of resonance, carefully wrapped in freewheeling tapestry, hinged in reverence to its diverse heritage, yet reveling in the inventive combination of its elements.
WATCH / SHARE “LUALABA MOTHER” HERE
Seamlessly working across Congolese rumba, contemporary electronic music, pop-R&B, and jazz-infused progressions with a range of global collaborators including Tendai Maraire (Shabazz Palaces), Branko (M.I.A., Buraka som Sistema), Michael Brun (J Balvin), and Uproot Andy (Bomba Estereo), José Louis and the Paradox of Love is both an embrace of African musical tradition and an evolution of it. Singing and rapping in Lingala, French, English, Tshiluba, and Kikongo, Kwenders similarly weaves his stories across the boundaries of language and geography.
WATCH / SHARE “PAPA WEMBA”
Born in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kwenders borrows his stage name from his late grandfather, a widely respected businessman and community figure. Following his mother’s footsteps, in 2001 Kwenders immigrated from Congo to Montreal. While his music-filled childhood quickly earned him a reputation as the most energetic dancer at family gatherings, it was when he joined a youth choir in 2008 that Kwenders would have his first formative musical experience. Collecting taxes by day and singing in church by night, this spiritually fitting experience brought a young Kwenders clarity on the role that music would come to play in his life. Inspired by “sagacité,” a way of life coined by Ivorian singer Douk Saga, which means to work hard in order to play hard, a decade later he’s established himself as an architect of modern African music, creating a unique blend of Afro-inflected electronic sounds inspired by Congolese rumba, propagated by the Moonshine collective, a post-border multidisciplinary artist collective celebrating diversity in dance culture since Kwenders co-founded it in 2014.
WATCH / SHARE “HEARTBEAT” (FEAT. ANAIIS)
José Louis and the Paradox of Love is a culmination of personal growth and the musical dexterity he has honed over the years, converging his strong songwriting capabilities with the bravado he possesses as a DJ. The album explores an ongoing search to grasp the universal complexities of romance, sometimes through the lens of Kwenders’ own intimate experiences. The songs were written and recorded over the span of four years, and the album is symbolically titled after his birth name, José Louis Modabi. Through different moments of tension and release, romantic narratives of beauty and disaster are packed into powerful poetic musical vignettes.
WATCH / SHARE “KILIMANJARO” (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
WATCH / SHARE “KILIMANJARO” LIVE
José Louis and The Paradox of Love transcends genres including electronic, pop, and rumba and includes instruments such as the guitar, saxophone, cello, trumpet, violin, and the Mbira, a plucked idiophone from Zimbabwe. Just as Kwenders writes from a multilingual perspective, so too does he draw on his musical influences, searching for the precise nuances offered by each one to best emotionally resonate. Dipping into a wide range of cultures, the album was written and recorded over four years in a handful of cities across borders including Montreal, Lisbon, Seattle, New York City, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.
BUY/STREAM JOSÉ LOUIS AND THE PARADOX OF LOVE
PHOTO CREDIT: Julien Herger // HI-RES DOWNLOAD
ALBUM ARTWORK // HI-RES DOWNLOAD
PIERRE KWENDERS ON TOUR // TICKETS HERE
2022
12/7 - Philadelphia PA - Dolphin Tavern
12/8 - New York NY - Nublu
12/9 - Kingston NY - Tubby’s
12/10 - Washington DC - Quarry House
2023
01/25 - Winnipeg MB - West End Cultural Centre
01/26 - Saskatoon SK - Broadway Theatre
01/27 - Regina SK - Artesian
01/28 - Edmonton AB - 9910
02/01 - Los Angeles CA - Peppermint Club
02/02 - San Francisco CA - Rickshaw Shop
02/03 - Portland OR - Polaris Hall
02/04 - Seattle WA - Madam Lou’s
02/08 - Victoria, BC - Capital Ballroom
02/09 - Vancouver, BC - Biltmore Cabaret
02/11 - Calgary AB - The Palace, Block Heater Festival
02/16 - Ottawa, ON - Block Heater
02/17 - Toronto, ON - Adelaide Hall
02/24 - Montreal, QC - Aussgang
