Le triomphe de Buffalo BillCinema poster
Coll. RMCA

Andrada and his brother Kongoniko.
Kinshasa, RD Congo.
Photographer J. Depara. 1954.Coll. Archives Espace
'L'art de vivre' Baudouin Bikoko.
Rights reserved.

In Leopoldville's 'indigenous' township, some youths aspire to modernity without wanting or being able to become 'évolués'.

They develop a counterculture, subversive and marginal, but in the long run very influential.

The 'Bills' (from Buffalo Bill) model themselves on the cowboys in American westerns and create their own cultural codes through fashion, slang and music.

This urban youth culture is absent from Inforcongo's images, which emphasize 'primitive' Congolese of the countryside, 'évolués' of the city and workers of the industrial centres.

Many Bills, however, are captured in the photographs of Depara, who becomes the photographer of the singer Franco of OK Jazz, a band whose popularity in Leopoldville's township bars and clubs will begin to grow in 1956.