This new album Nkolo is all the more worthwhile for Lokua's many experiences as a musician, composer, producer, arranger, globe-trotter. Instinctive, suffused by an inner radiance, it positively glows with elegance and refinement, yet remains a model of soberness too. Each of the twelve titles is like a pastel artwork, both soft and dense. Sung in Lingala, Portuguese and French, it is the embodiment of the perfect cross-cultural mix, a blend of beautiful melodies and radiant atmospheres; with this as its basis, it symbolises the ideal fusion of several musical continents. And lastly - surely the most remarkable thing of all - the aesthetics it creates simply defy categorization, touching at times on unseen spiritual forces.