From Kinshasa

Background

The album's title was originally planned to be From Kinshasa to the Moon: "But World Circuit, with their English not being very strong, didn’t really catch that part! But a lot of the press are taking it on now, so I phoned [World Circuit] to say that they really shouldn’t have changed the title as it conveys the idea that your preconceptions about music from certain places might not be quite right. It’s from a city where you wouldn’t imagine that you’d find all these artists. The guy on the cover is a performance artist and there are tons of people in the city making incredible punky art. Kinshasa’s very good for that, there’s a big artistic subculture and people are instinctive in the way they work."

Critical reception

From Kinshasa received widespread critical acclaim upon its release. It holds a weighted mean of 88 out of 100 from Metacritic, based on 13 critics, while on another aggregate site AnyDecentMusic?, it holds an 8.6 out of ten, also a weighted average.

Alexis Petridis of The Guardian gave a five-star review of From Kinshasa, describing the album as "like arriving in a bustling, unfamiliar city, a very long way from home: a gripping mix of excitement, apprehension and sensory overload." In his ten-out-of-ten review for Drowned in Sound, Tristan Bath called it "a really classic record for the ages", honoring it as a turning point for music released by African artists. Spin scored the album a nine out of ten, saying that it contributes new aspects in urban music.

From Kinshasa was one of NPR Music's and Rolling Stone's favorite albums of the first half of 2015.