Bonga Kwenda is considered a superstar throughout Europa and Africa, though he is still somewhat unknown in the United States. He has recorded 17 albums in a 28-year career, and has been the subject of at least four compilations and countless re-issues. He is also the subject of a biography, "Dendém de Aucar", and several films and videos.

Bonga's life is inextricably linked to N'Gola's struggle for freedom from colonial domination and the continuing struggle for a stable, comfortable, post-colonial existance. In this regard, his career bears a striking parallel to that of Thomas Mapfumo from Zimbabwe.

Bonga Kwenda was born Barceló de Carvalho in Dandé, N'Gola, in 1942. He first came to prominence as an athlete initially as a world-class 400 meter champion who set a record he held for ten years, and later as a star on the great Benfica (Lisbõa) fûtbol team of the 1960s.

Portugal was then ruled by the repressive right-wing Salazar government. Like the regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Espana, it was a Nazi-allied government which managed to remain in power in Western Europa well into the 1970s without much fanfare in the United States.

N'Golans were restricted in every manner possible, including travel. They were also generally denied Portuguese citizenship. Bonga's status as star athlete allowed him freedom of movement, which he used to carry messages between exiled freedom fighters and compatriots still in N'Gola. As the movement for independence heated up, Bonga was forced into exile himself, first in Rotterdam, then in Paris. It was in Rotterdam in 1972 that he recorded his first record, "Angola '72", and adapted the name Bonga Kwenda.

After independence Bonga established a residence in Lisbõa while retaining a Paris residence and one in N'Gola. As post-colonial life in N'Gola disintegrated into corruption, squalor, brutality, and a interminable and bloody civil war, Bonga has remained critical of the political leaders on all sides.

Bonga's voice of conscience continues to make him a hero to the people of N'Gola, but has never endeared him to the powers that be. He remains fiercely dedicated to the realisation of the ideal he states simply: "We must live without harming others".

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