Of Mr. Phil Collins and Others

A friend of mine here has a portable CD player, and, batteries permitting, always passes me his headphones to give a listen. The problem is that he is always listening to Lingala Christian music, which is, to put it politely, a bit saccharine for my tastes. Today was different. He gave me his headphones and he had Koffi (Olomide), who I love. Koffi is one of the world’s greatest singers, and is popular with everyone from teens to seniors. (One of the highlights of my time in Kinshasa was when I saw him driving his yellow Mercedes sports car last year.) After having politely told my friend that his Christian music did not interest me, I was excited that I finally could be sincerely enthusiastic. He told me that the CD was a mix and I could copy it. All of the music, unfortunately, was not Koffi. The seventh song was Phil Collins, who is inexplicably popular here. The eighth song was R. Kelly, whose popularity I better understand even if he also turns my stomach. So as I make myself a copy of the CD, I need to exclude a couple of songs (I find Phil Collins absolutely unbearable). But I feel guilty. What is a CD of “real” Kinois music without Phil Collins?