Lous and The Yakuza

Lous and The Yakuza is a Congolese-Rwandan singer and songwriter based in Belgium. In her music she speaks about loneliness and colonialism, which are topics highly connected to her story.

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo from a family of doctors, she was forced to flee her country due to the constant conflicts and war. When she revealed to her parents her desire to become a singer she was kicked out and forced to become homeless. Her voice and inner strength is what saved her as she started singing in e studio, which was also her new home.

If I could I would live alone, away from problems and dilemmas

The theme of loneliness is prominent in her songs and is a topic a lot of black women can relate to. Society, family and friends expect you to fit into a box and erase your true self to make everyone else happy, except for yourself

There are high expectations from parents who have a common belief that conventional and traditional career choices are more respectable than the arts. Being a black woman myself I find it hard to accept that this is the reality for a lot of women who look like me. Since I was born, my parents allowed me to express my creativity through paintings, sculptures, drawings and filmmaking. However, many black women I know, who have wonderful vocal and artistic skills receive zero to no support and are forced to stand alone and follow their path. Lous’ story highly inspired me to support the black women who want to be themselves, follow their path and do what is best for them, without any support from family or society.

Because of how society is structured, black women have to face both sexism, racism and colorism and living your family could leave you without any protection at all. It is dangerous but I believe women like Lous and The Yakuza are opening the path to new african black women based in Europe and are providing them a space to express themselves.

Why is black not a colour of the rainbow?

Her music talks a lot about her native country. There is a sense of proudness in her words that highlights how wonderful it is to be connected to your african roots. Since she started her career she made it clear she is from Democratic republic of Congo and her culture is mentioned in most of her interviews.

She highly inspired me to search for a connection with my native language and a lot of my family members, who I never had the opportunity to meet due to them being based in centre and west Africa. A lot of black women from the African diaspora are disconnected from their roots as it’s hard to connect when speaking a totally different language. Being an afro italian women, I find it hard to understand french or Lingala, my dad’s native language, however, her songs, especially ‘Solo’, released towards the end of 2019, inspired me to learn the language of my parents.

Lous and The Yakuza can speak a lot of languages, such as french, dutch, english, Kinyarwanda, a language spoken in the Congo and Rwanda and Kiswahili which is the language she associate with her family.

Her choice to speak her own languages revolutionised the way people view European female artists. Many black women role models are english speaking therefore, a young girl who aspire to become a singer is more likely to start her career by speaking in english.

In most of her songs, Lous speaks French and in many interviews she mixes the languages she can speak. She inspired many black women to use their native language in music and express their creativity by connecting to their culture.

1960 the year of independence

Colonisation is not a common topic in mainstream music. Most popular songs are about love, suxual liberation and financial achievements.

Lous managed to include such a difficult topic in her music. Congo being one of the richest countries in the world due to its geographical position, should also allow the citizens to live a peaceful life, however, many children are forced into labour to collect diamonds that most of the time are sold in Western countries. Lous incorporates the topic in her songs and teaches people how the country gained independence, however, is still suffering from war and poverty.