Papa Noël, who has died aged 83, was a songwriter and guitar hero during the golden age of Congolese music from the 1950s to the 70s, when rumba and soukous dominated the African music scene. The electric guitar played a key role in the charming, lilting, Cuban-influenced dance music that emerged from a country battered by corruption and fighting, and Noël was known for a style that was elegant and technically brilliant, with a quick-fingered virtuosity that was light and never over-flashy.
He played with a remarkable array of bands, both in Léopoldville (known as Kinshasa after 1966) and across the river in the neighbouring country of Congo-Brazzaville, working with the two key figures in Congolese music, Joseph Kabasele (le Grand Kallé), leader of the band African Jazz, and Franco, a guitarist who ran the massively successful OK Jazz.
