Delcat Idinco: The Voice of Congolese People

“Bunduki za Kwetu” [Our Guns] was the last song released by Congolese musician Delphin Katembo Vinywasiki, popularly known as Delcat Idinco or Idengo (31). Hours later, he was shot dead while filming the song’s music video on February 13, 2025 in Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Significance of his songs

Known as “the voice of the people”, this young, dynamic artist produced songs that exposed the rot of those – both internal and external actors – scrambling for the Congo’s wealth in the pursuit of profit over people’s lives. With lyrics that strongly condemn the occupation of Goma by the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF – backed by the United States, United Kingdom, France and European Union) and their proxy M23, “Bunduki za Kwetu” paints a clear picture of those responsible for the city of Goma being under siege.

“The song for which Delcat was killed is the most significant. Bunduki za Kwetu sent a loud and direct message to the occupier,” says Kambale Musavuli, an analyst from the Centre for Research on the Congo-Kinshasa. “His songs addressed very specific issues. Whenever he witnessed injustice, he created music. It was his way of expressing frustration with what was happening. Through his art, he gave voice to the concerns of his country,” adds Musavuli. “Delcat witnessed young girls being abducted and raped by the M23. He saw people being shot. Deeply affected by what was happening in Goma, he decided to write a song about it—an act of remarkable courage.”

“Bunduki za Kwetu” falls part of a long line of songs that lay bare the brutal reality of life inflicted on the people of the DRC. From “Ebola Business Cop” which tackles the 2018–2020 Ebola crisis in Kivu to his 2021 track “Politiciens Escrocs” [Crooked Politicians], which ultimately got him arrested, to using music to openly criticize current DRC President Felix Tshisekedi for bowing to the West’s imperialist interests, Delcat’s music left no stone unturned in challenging the power structure oppressing the Congolese people. Anytime he witnessed injustice, he amplified what he saw through song. “His voice was so powerful that they had to silence it. He wielded his voice as a weapon, and those who recognized its power felt compelled to shut it down,” Musavuli adds.

Born, lived, and died in conflict

Delcat’s assassination took place within the context of an ongoing escalating conflict in North Kivu province. Since January, more than 9,000 people have lost their lives in the M23 offensive, with hundreds of thousands of people being displaced and livelihoods destroyed. Central to the continued conflict and imperialist plunder is the scramble for the country’s land and resources. Delcat knew and understood this. “His assassination sent a clear warning to any Congolese who dare to speak out: what happened to Delcat could happen to them, too,” explains Musavuli.

The city of Beni in North Kivu, Delcat’s birthplace, lies part of the oil reserves around Lake Albert bordering Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2024, Uganda announced a project to use the crude oil found under Lake Albert for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project. Here, French oil giant Total Energies (one of several multinationals involved in the plunder of the DRC) and the governments of Uganda and Tanzania aim to extract oil from the lake and transport it to Tanzania’s coastline to the Chongoleani Peninsula near Tanga Port for export.

“Because of Beni’s vast natural wealth, and the relentless greed it attracts, Delcat was born into conflict in a region that has never known peace. For decades, the struggle to control these resources has fueled a low-intensity war across Beni,” says Musavuli. Delcat wrote many songs elaborating on this such as “La Guerre” [The War] for example. “It is not easy for an artist in the DRC to challenge the status quo. Delcat’s death stands as a testament to the courage of the Congolese people who rise against injustice, confronting the oppressor without fear of death,” emphasizes Musavuli.

A voice of the people

Protests and calls for justice have filled the streets of North Kivu since his death, particularly in Beni. Ultimately, Delcat understood the true enemy of the people. He recognized exactly who profits from the decades-long war of destabilization—waged by proxy rebel groups backed by Rwanda and Uganda, as documented by the UN Group of Experts. These two nations, in turn, receive financial, military, and political support from the United States, United Kingdom, France, and the European Union.

He understood his role as an artist was to unveil the truth and always take the side of the Congolese people. For Delcat, music had to carry a message. His voice forms part of the many waves of popular discontent and thousands of Congolese people who protest and reject their continued subjugation to the profit seeking logic of international capital. Musavuli adds, “His music gave confidence to the Congolese people. He had a consistent message, that the Congolese people will rise up!”

Congo’s unfolding humanitarian catastrophe is simultaneously a decades-long crisis, where the Congo has been a feeding trough for imperialist powers, rather than a sovereign country producing prosperity for its people. Genuinely ending the conflict and violent forms of dehumanization requires people’s organizations and international solidarity.

In a similar way to how culture was weaponized through organized resistance in the struggle to end apartheid in Southern Africa, the songs, theater, paint and poems will help to cleanse the Congo of a culture of silence. While art gives dignity to a people in struggle, it also articulates the future we collectively imagine. Delcat was assassinated because he was a successful communicator whose ideas resonated with and inspired hope in the Congolese people.

Seven days after Delcat’s assassination, a group of Congolese artists released a song called “Free Congo” keeping up with the legacy of Congolese cultural workers using art to agitate and mobilize the masses for transformational change.

To free Africa from the talons of a neo-colonial deadlock, the Congo remains central to the pan-African emancipatory project. We must heed the call of our revolutionary ancestors. As Ghanaian Pan Africanist Kwame Nkrumah declared, “The Congo is the heart of Africa, any wound inflicted upon the Congo is a wound to the whole of Africa”.

While Delcat’s assassination is a painful wound, his death has not killed his ideas.

Kate Janse Van Rensburg is part of the Pan Africanism Today Secretariat, the regional articulation of the International Peoples’ Assembly for Sub Saharan Africa.