One only needs to see him live once to understand Kizaba’s music. Blending electronic sounds and soukous guitars, ancestral Congolese culture and a hyper-connected future, this multi-instrumentalist invites us to a place where he’s omniscient: Future Village, a project located at a crossroads of genres that’s as bold as it is unifying.
“My success in Québec began with KizaVibe [in 2022],” says the artist, with the simplicity of someone who understands the necessity of the road that he’s travelled. Crowned the Révélation Radio-Canada 2024–2025 and nominated at the JUNO Awards, he’s still far from having reached the peak of his career. With Future Village, he says he wants to go even further, especially in sharing his culture.
Between Kinshasa and Montréal, Kizaba has built his realm on two continents. “I worked between Québec and the Congo, and on my tours of Asia, South America, and the U.S., I was able to test the songs that ended up on Future Village,” he says. The end result is a vibrant album sung in French, English, Lingala, and Kikongo, from a place where borders no longer exist. “I really wanted to mix the languages. A lot of things become possible, musically, when you go beyond that barrier,” says Kizaba.
Musically, his album is an invitation to discover new horizons: roots, French Touch, Afrobeats, dubstep, folk, Afro-pop-rock – anything goes! Beatmaker Eli Levinson joins collaborators such as Fredy Massamba, Sébastien Lacombe, and Wesli, under the sonic direction of record producer James Benjamin, who won a Grammy with Kaytranada. “I’ve always wanted to work with new allies. I’ve also created some beats myself,” says Kizaba, while outlining his detail-oriented, deeply personal creative process.
This personal dimension is notably expressed through the voice of his grandmother, which was re-created with a computer. “I wanted to include something ancestral, so I used my software to create the voices of elderly people,” he says. “My grandmother, who raised me in the Congo, was a percussionist. She sang a lot of traditional music. I’ve communicated that tradition by re-inventing her voice with a computer. Obviously, I couldn’t hire grannies as backing vocalists,” he adds, laughing.
Select the image to access the YouTube video of the Kizaba song “Future Village” (featuring Sébastien Lacombe)
Kizaba’s hybrid sonic universe offers a gateway to contemplation of existence. “I’m talking about loving your neighbour, and about spirituality, too.. One of my songs, “Yembelayé,” talks about losing hope,” he confides, evoking the death of his parents and sister. “I believe in God, but I’ve stopped going to church. This album is about me. KizaVibe was a celebration; Future Village is about the perseverance and the courage I had to leave Africa for a better life,” he says, very emotionally.
His innovative music is as seductive as it is surprising. “These songs surprise people all around the world,” says Kizaba. “I think people find it interesting the I start with a meditation that evolves into dubstep with Congolese influences,” he says, adding that such a combination is “far from common.”
Although he’s increasingly recognized in Québec, Kizaba readily admits that audiences in the province can be demanding and hard to reach. “If it was easy, I’d already be playing festivals like Osheaga and the Festival d’été de Québec, because once you see me onstage, you won’t understand why you haven’t seen me on stage before – people are on their feet right from the start,” he says, with a touch of humour, adding that he dreams of bigger tours inside the province.
Yet Kizaba’s joy is evident as soon as he talks about his collaboration with Fredy Massamba. “The one thing I’m proudest of on this album is having worked with him,” he says. “He’s always given me goosebumps, and he told me I was among the few who truly master Congolese music in Canada. I couldn’t believe it when he said that! It was the nicest compliment I could get, and it came from the one person that truly made it meaningful.
“Future Village is a new village I created for people: it’s more than music, it’s an experience.”