Ngola Ritmos

Ngola Ritmos
Liceu, Nino Ndongo, Belita Palma, Amadeu Amorim, Lourdes Van Dunem and Zé María
Background information
Origin	Bairro Operário, Luanda, Angola
Genres	Afro-Folk Semba
Instrument(s)	Guitar, Reco-Reco (Dikanza), Drums and Acacia Sticks
Years active	1947–1960s

Ngola Ritmos is an Angolan traditional music band, created in 1947 by Liceu Vieira Dias, Domingos Van-Dúnem, Mário da Silva Araújo, Manuel dos Passos and Nino Ndongo. They sang in kimbundu with the purpose to spread and divulge culture and awareness to the peoples of Luanda during the Portuguese Empire era.

In the 1950s, the band comprised Liceu, Nino, Amadeu Amorim, José Maria, Euclides Fontes Pereira, José Cordeiro, Lourdes Van-Dúnem and Belita Palma. They sang laments inspired by their daily chronicles or funeral rites where women would also sing laments.

Whike songs like Mbiri Mbiri, Kolonial, Palamé or Muxima, which are their most popular themes, have been covered by numerous artists, recordings by Ngola Ritmos are very rare. Muxima and Django Ué were recorded in Luanda. Most of the members of Ngola Ritmos were nationalist militants. Liceu, one of the founding members of the group, was also a founding member of the MPLA and along with Amadeu Amorim, he was arrested in 1959 and deported to the Tarrafal prison in Cape Verde, to return only ten years later. Nevertheless, the band lasted until the late sixties, recording the song Nzaji in Lisbon.