Brazzaville

Meet the sapeurs.

Clad in designer clothes, they strut the streets of Brazzaville and Kinshasa.

Mixing colors, patterns, and luxury labels, sapeurs command attention in the mostly lower-income communities where they live.

They're local celebrities vying to outdo each other while projecting confidence and joy.

A couple of days.

We got, I believe you said the seventh annual Brazzaville

Gives, right? Well, we're getting ready to start our eighth.

Eighth annual, that's right.

Eighth annual Brazzaville Gives coming up October 20th, 2026.

We are just a little over a month away from it, which, oh my gosh, it's coming up quick.

You just blink and here it is.

It's a country that makes no sense, um, as a, as a unit, um, which is part of the reason it's still mired in civil war.

But, but, uh, but musically in, in the capital, Kinshasa, and in the city just across the river, Brazzaville, which is, which is, uh, the Co- the Congo, uh, what we know as the Congo now, Democratic Republic of Congo, was, was Belgian-

Mm

... uh, colonized.

Everybody just couldn't resist dancing to it.

And the singing was so beautiful that even if you didn't understand the lyrics, it worked.

And, and, and so Kinshasa in particular, and Brazzaville to a degree, became these almost like factories of really good musicians, because it was very competitive.

And so because it was so competitive, they would go to Nairobi or Dar es Salaam or Gabon.

The ousting of the democratically elected Lumumba was given international approval when, at a UN General Assembly, Kasa-Vubu's delegation was recognized as the representative of the Congolese government.

Belgian, US, UN, and Congolese officials now began considering ways to prevent the fallen prime minister returning to power, a process initiated as early as the 10th of September when the Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister, Pierre Wigny, wrote ominously to his team at Brazzaville that responsible authorities had the duty to render Lumumba harmless.

On the 27th of November, the opportunity to render him harmless came when Lumumba, realizing he could only regain the initiative through popular support, escaped from his bondage in an attempt to link up with his followers gathered at Kisangani.

Working in conjunction with Mobutu, on December the 1st, US and Belgian intelligence agencies tracked him down to Lodi, located on the left bank of the Sankuru River.

Legendary among his compatriots, Mulele became so popular among the revolutionary fighters that it was commonly believed he had invented a magic formula that transformed bullets into water.

However, unable to expand his territorial gains, the revolution lost its urgency, with Mulele and his commanders making little progress in the Kwilu bush over the next five years.

In August 1968, having gone to Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo for medical treatment, he was lured back to Kinshasa by the Binza group on false promises of reconciliation.

When he arrived on the 8th of October 1968, he was immediately apprehended and murdered in a horrifying display of brutality, which was a glimpse of the horrors Mobutu was capable of.

So when you, when you get to Kinshasa, so Congo, Kinshasa, and then the city is Kinshasa right on the river, there's a really cool overlanding spot, which is just the-

In Brazzaville.

Oh, in Brazzaville.

Oh, right.

It's in Brazzaville.

But it's the, anyway, it's the tennis club, and it's like a fancy type of like, I guess it was at one point like a country club or something for the French, and it's now, you know, a really nice tennis club with a pool, and they just let overlanders camp there for free.

So you head there, you can use the pool, you can do whatever.

You can like, you know, get, get your things together after a few days, like driving and camping.