On the cover of the latest issue of GQ, superstar Jay-Z is honoring Congolese roots. He features a Songye mask, known as Kifwebe (from the Kasaï region), against a background of Kuba cloth.

The term Kifwebe, which means "The Face," refers simultaneously to the mask, the secret society that holds it, and the dance itself.

The Songye people live in the Lomami River region, in the current provinces of Kasaï-Oriental and Lomami. Although they share roots with the Luba, the Songye have developed a very distinct artistic identity, characterized by rigorous geometric forms.

Jay-Z : la grande interview exclusive avec le rappeur américain | GQ France https://www.gqmagazine.fr/article/jay-z-interview-exclusive

Bonjour à tous ! Je suis un étranger travaillant actuellement à Kinshasa (dans le secteur du photovoltaïque, de l'énergie solaire et du stockage d'énergie). J'aimerais mieux comprendre les différentes communes de la ville pour la vie quotidienne, la sécurité et les sorties.

• Quels sont les quartiers les plus recommandés pour les expatriés ?
• J'entends souvent parler de la Gombe, Ngaliema et Limete. Quelles sont les vraies différences d'ambiance entre elles ?
• Y a-t-il des zones à éviter absolument, surtout le soir ?

Merci d'avance pour vos conseils !

Some were released after Chinese embassy intervention. This targets unauthorised operators, not Chinese mining investment generally.

How can millions of personal names help us understand the linguistic and cultural diversity of an entire country? A new open-access dataset from the Democratic Republic of the Congo offers researchers an important resource for exploring this question.

Published on 8 July 2026 in the journal Data, the study “CongoNames Corpus: A Large-Scale Labeled Dataset of Congolese Personal Names” introduces a collection of more than 8 million personal-name records, compiled from national secondary-school examination results.

The corpus was developed by Tshabu Ngandu Bernard, Cansa Kayembe Amaury and Mpyana Mwamba Merlec, researchers affiliated with Université Nouveaux Horizons in Lubumbashi and Korea University in Seoul.

The authors present CongoNames as the first large-scale, openly available structured corpus of personal names from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Its significance extends beyond computational linguistics: it provides new opportunities for quantitative anthroponymy, sociolinguistics, language-contact research and the geographical study of personal names. More

Hey Guys..

This is my update on the situation in the country and the east region today.

As of the time of writing Goma is taken by the M23, but there is still no internet, no electricity, and no water one the town.

The news we are getting from friends of family is that there is a huge number of military bodies on the field and a lot of people have lost their lives. People cannot go outside to mourn them.

While Rwanda and M23 have taken the town they haven't allowed humanitarians to go on the field and help people who lost their lives... A huge humanitarian crisis is happening in the city.

From the news I am getting from people and security organizations, the rebels are moving to the south of the province to aim to control South Kivu and Bukavu, the twin city of Goma. If they manage to control the Kavumu airport in South Kivu there will be no way that Kinshasa can send protection to the region.

Some leaders of South Kivu have called for a huge resistance in the region but let's wait and see.

Meanwhile, what is happening in Kinshasa?

Yesterday there were attacks and looting against major embassies in Kinshasa. Those attacks were organized by the UDPS the governing party. The Embassies have condemned the situation, the US has temporarily closed its embassy and urged its population to leave the country, and France has condamed attacks against their embassy.

I think that we should protest only against our government and our politicians because they are the root cause of this war.

Now the president hasn't spoken yet, he hasn't addressed anything to the nation. A lot of voices for journalists are being raised to talk about the corruption and all the issues we have in our army.

EDIT: He has spoken, he gave a 10-minute speech, but nothing concrete came from it.

On the diplomatic side: Our minister has raised their voice in the UN council but I think that a diplomatic solution will not solve this issue.

What will happen next?

It is very hard to say, a lot of scenarios are possible:

- Someone from the army can raise and plan a coup against Felix Tshisekedi organize the army and fight to regain the region.

- Kagame and Rwanda will control the Kivu region as he have always wanted but he will face a huge resistance in the region, we don't like him at all there! So that will not be good time for him.

- etc..

I don't know..

That Is all I can say now..

If you want to help organizations that are doing work in the region, please check my previous post here and the go under the link I have shared.

Hey everyone!

I’m starting Lubumbashi Social Club, a social community for English-speaking people living in Lubumbashi — especially international residents, people who recently moved here, students, professionals, and anyone looking to expand their social circle.

The idea is simple: meet people, make friends, speak English, exchange cultures, chill, and have fun. No English classes, no pressure — just a welcoming community.

👉 Join us on WhatsApp and be part of the community:
Join the Lubumbashi Social Club WhatsApp Group

If you speak English and live in Lubumbashi, come join us! 🌍🤝🇨🇩

Lubumbashi Social Club
Meet • Speak • Connect

I saw this app/site on TikTok and I wanted to share it here, because I think many of you will appreciate it.

Leopards Watch (leopardswatch.com) identifies and tracks Congolese players (DRC) who play in Europe and North Africa. Player files, statistics, transfers, and the young nuggets to follow. Exactly the kind of centralised tool that was missing: a single place to see where our Leopards evolve, instead of information scattered between tweets and club sites.

With the 2026 World Cup and all the pride around the Leopards right now, it’s really the right time for this kind of project. And it’s created by someone from our own community, it deserves support.

Go take a look and test this: leopardswatch.com

Do not hesitate to say what you think, or if players are missing!

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGdQNdxce/

🐆🇨🇩

LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH LOVE FROM PUERTO RICOOOOO 🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾

“This outbreak is now the largest recorded Ebola virus disease outbreak in the country, surpassing the previous largest outbreak, which occurred from 2018 to 2020, and resulted in 3317 confirmed cases.”