CANADIAN TOUR DATES BEGIN IN 2023
WATCH / SHARE “KILIMANJARO” LIVE
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 a mixture of 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: Vanessa Heins
Congolese-born, Montreal-based musician, songwriter, and DJ Pierre Kwenders (he/him) has won the Polaris Music Prize awarded to the Best Canadian Album for his deeply personal, innovative, and undefinable masterpiece José Louis And The Paradox Of Love. A storyteller at his core, a joyful and reflective Kwenders at the night’s gala thanked family, friends, and collaborators who contributed to the telling of his journey: “This is for all the kids from the diaspora… 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.” Motivated by the intricacies of love, the songs of José Louis And The Paradox Of Love together narratives from memories of the past, sketches of his hometown, and reflections on the future. With his third Polaris nominated album and first via Arts & Crafts, 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 “KILIMANJARO” LIVE
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 (Poirier), 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.
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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.
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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)
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 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
PIERRE KWENDERS ON TOUR
2022
12/8 - New York NY - Nublu
2023
02/8 - Victoria, BC - Capital Ballroom
02/9 - Vancouver, BC - Biltmore Cabaret
02/16 - Ottawa, ON - Block Heater
02/17 - Toronto, ON - Adelaide Hall
02/24 - Montreal, QC - Aussgang
*** MORE CANADIAN DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON ***
