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Use Canva presentations by heading to

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canva.com. Designed for

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work. This

1:06

is 99% Invisible. I'm

1:08

Christopher Johnson. It's

1:11

February 2nd, 2014, and you're balancing

1:14

a plate of wings and blue cheese

1:16

dip on your lap watching the Seattle

1:18

Seahawks thrash the Denver Broncos into Super

1:20

Bowl. Then during one

1:22

of the commercial breaks, you see this

1:24

ad. In

1:27

the middle of the screen it says, Congo,

1:29

Brazzaville. There's a group of

1:31

men doing hard, dirty work clearing fields

1:34

and fixing cars. In

1:36

life, we cannot always choose what

1:38

you do, but you can

1:40

always choose who you are. Next

1:43

thing you know, the ad cuts to a new scene. It's

1:46

the evening, and now we're at a bar. This

1:49

is producer Ryan Lenora Brown. A

1:52

crowd has formed a circle around those

1:54

same men who have shed their dirty

1:56

work clothes for coral pink, canary, and

1:58

bright tangerine colored suits. One

2:00

by one, the men proudly strut and

2:02

pose, twirling their gold pocket watches,

2:05

snapping their suspenders, and shooting their

2:07

cuffs as the crowd cheers them on.

2:10

In the corner, a bartender smiles approvingly

2:12

as he pours a glass of Guinness.

2:14

You see my friends, we

2:16

all be brave, but I dare be cautious.

2:19

You say I am

2:21

the master of my faith. I

2:25

am the captain of my soul. Okay,

2:28

so I admit, at first glance, it may seem a

2:30

bit out of left field that a group of Congolese

2:32

men dressed like an exquisitely elegant pack

2:34

of highlighters is out here selling Irish

2:37

beer during the Super Bowl. But

2:41

actually, everyone from cinematographers to

2:43

musicians to style mavens have

2:46

finally been catching on to

2:48

this loose-knit collective of dandies

2:50

called Sapphors. They're

2:52

from the central African cities of

2:55

Brazzaville and Kinshasa, and since the

2:57

1970s, they've been known for donning

2:59

technicolor three-piece suits with flamboyant accessories

3:02

like golden walking sticks and leopard-print

3:04

fedoras, and then cat walking through

3:07

their city streets. In

3:09

recent years, the Sapphors have blown up. Solange,

3:12

Kendrick, and SZA have all

3:14

featured Sapphors in their music

3:16

videos. The iconic British

3:18

menswear designer Paul Smith did a

3:20

whole spring line of Sapphors-inspired suits

3:23

and bowler hats. If

3:25

you want to be delighted, do a real quick

3:27

image search. When you see the

3:29

Sapphors, it's obvious what makes them

3:31

so attractive to famous artists and global

3:33

brands. Their remix on

3:35

classic menswear is irreverent and colorful and

3:38

just a joy to look at. And

3:41

these images are really different from the

3:43

stereotypical way that sub-Saharan Africa is often

3:45

portrayed to the world. Those

3:48

images depict the region as broke and

3:50

broken. As an American

3:52

journalist who's worked here for the past

3:54

decade, I've seen those stereotypes. We all

3:57

have. And the reality is, life in

3:59

the world is a reality. places like the Congo

4:01

is really difficult, especially

4:03

after centuries of brutal colonization,

4:06

resource extraction, and underdevelopment. Into

4:09

that bleak frame strolls the

4:11

sapphors. These Congolese

4:13

mechanics and construction workers and

4:16

farmhands dressed up like aristocratic

4:18

peacocks flaunting their

4:20

Ferragamo monk-strap shoes, silk

4:23

Chanel scarves, and crisp

4:25

Versace suits. For

4:29

sapphors, looking that clean is like

4:31

two huge f*** use. One

4:34

for the cards they've been dealt, and

4:36

the other to anyone who thinks those

4:38

circumstances could ever define them. At

4:41

the root of this is this phenomenon

4:44

of having agency and

4:46

using style. Chantrel Lewis

4:48

is author of the book Dandelion, The

4:51

Black Dandy and Street Style, which features

4:53

the sapphors. Black men have

4:55

taken the European suit and

4:58

fashioned it with traditional African

5:01

sensibilities. I'm talking about color.

5:04

I'm talking about swag. I'm talking

5:06

about using the European

5:08

suit to defy their

5:11

material conditions, defy their

5:13

realities. For more

5:15

than a century, Black dandies like the

5:18

sapphors have been engaged in what Chantrel

5:20

calls dapper agitation. It's

5:22

a counterintuitive kind of rebellion, right? Because

5:25

in a way, formal wear is all

5:27

about conformity. That's why we

5:29

call people suits. And jackets

5:31

and ties came to this part of the

5:33

world in a particularly ugly and violent way.

5:36

They were brought by colonizers who made

5:39

dressing European a precondition for being treated

5:41

like a human being. But

5:43

the sapphors have flipped that script in dramatic

5:46

fashion. They've taken the European

5:48

suit, this thing that was forced

5:50

on them, and made it wholly

5:52

authentically Congolese. And they've done

5:54

it so well that now it's the rest of

5:56

us trying to wear our clothes to look like

5:59

them. This radical fashion

6:01

transformation began way before anybody in

6:03

the Congo was calling themselves a sappour.

6:06

In fact, it started before the Congo was even

6:08

a country of its own. It

6:10

goes back to the first generations of

6:12

Congolese men to put on suits and ties. Men

6:15

like Frederick and Penda. Okay,

6:18

I'm going to try to be a little bit more. Right?

6:21

Right. Mama, mise. It's a sticky September

6:23

day in Kinshasa, the capital of the

6:25

Democratic Republic of the Congo. I'm

6:28

sitting under a leafy mango tree in Frederick's

6:30

yard. He's 89, dressed

6:32

in the international off-duty grandpa uniform,

6:35

a gray polo shirt and blue

6:37

track pants. But 70 years

6:39

ago, his fashion sense was a little

6:41

different. Frederick flips open a photo

6:43

album and points to a black and white

6:45

picture. There's a young man wearing

6:48

a chic gray suit and tassel blophers,

6:50

holding a chunky baby with rolls like the

6:53

Michelin Man. Oh,

6:55

wow. That's me.

6:58

That's me, he says, pointing to the man in

7:00

the suit. He turns to another

7:02

photo of himself. This one is from the 1950s. Frederick

7:06

is sitting on his bicycle, wearing a

7:08

crisp white button down and throwing the

7:10

camera a brooding, serious gaze. His

7:13

hair is close cropped and there's a long

7:15

straight part running through it. Look

7:25

at that part. We were always

7:27

trying to imitate white people even though

7:29

our hair is nappy. Frederick

7:32

talks casually about it now. But

7:34

when this photo was taken, imitating how

7:36

white people dressed was a matter of survival here.

7:41

Back then, the Democratic Republic of the

7:43

Congo, or the DRC, was a

7:46

colony of the Belgians. They believed

7:48

they needed to, quote, civilize the

7:50

primitive Congolese, making them

7:52

less African and more white. Growing

7:55

up in the 1940s, Frederick's white

7:57

school teachers made it crystal clear.

8:00

that the only way a Congolese boy like

8:02

him could get ahead in life was to

8:04

aspire to be as European as he possibly

8:06

could. Frederick took their advice

8:09

to heart. As a young man,

8:11

he perfected his French, he got his diploma,

8:13

and in the 1950s he took a job

8:16

with the colonial government in Leopoldville,

8:18

what's now Kinshasa. But

8:20

of course, the Belgians were wild racists,

8:22

who by this point had already spent

8:25

more than a half century plundering Congo's

8:27

minerals using slave labor. They

8:29

didn't actually believe that someone like Frederick would

8:31

ever be equal to them. So

8:34

Frederick found himself continually having to prove

8:36

how Belgian he could be, like

8:38

when he applied to be an assistant to

8:40

a colonial administrator. Ah,

8:43

voila, double. We'll do the

8:45

test. You first did a

8:47

short exam. If you passed the

8:49

exam, you went to the hospital so they

8:52

could see if you were physically fit or

8:54

not. If they decided you

8:56

would fit, they handed you a little bottle

8:58

of cologne. In

9:03

a thousand ways, the Belgians tried to

9:05

erase the African-ness of the Congolese. In

9:07

order to succeed, you had to speak

9:09

and act and even smell like a

9:11

white person. This was

9:14

especially true for Frederick. That's

9:16

because he was considered an evolue,

9:19

which literally means an evolved one.

9:22

That's what the Belgians called a Congolese

9:25

person who broke ties with their African

9:27

identity and their community, and instead adopted

9:29

a European system of values. A

9:32

evolue status gave people like

9:34

Frederick access to education, jobs, and

9:36

neighborhoods that most Congolese would

9:38

never receive. But it

9:41

also meant constantly being subjected to

9:43

humiliating rituals. You would find

9:45

the world a place of

9:48

support. When

9:50

you arrived at work, you would find a

9:52

white man at the door. He

9:54

would smell you. And if you did

9:57

not smell good, If you did not

9:59

wear the cologne, He will send

10:01

you home sits. In our time

10:03

it was like that you could

10:05

not be on cooler today. I'm

10:07

not appropriate. Sales is acceptable. They've

10:09

always were expected to speak Chris

10:11

French, eat with a knife and

10:13

fork, and go to Mass on

10:15

Sundays. Sitting. With Frederick in

10:18

his yard in Kinshasa, He explained

10:20

to me that being and abel no

10:22

way meant having to look European to.

10:24

It's at this point in our conversation

10:26

that he gets up and goes inside

10:28

his him. When. He comes

10:30

back. She's holding an armful of vintage

10:32

suit. Frederick son, Teddy

10:34

Tozer who was the chubby little

10:36

baby Frederick was holding. And that snapshots

10:38

has been sitting with us. the. Whole

10:40

time he starts going through

10:42

his father suit with us

10:44

in a closed for due

10:47

to low do says the

10:49

plus so more. One

10:51

is the bread. Kind of Bordeaux.

10:53

There's a dark salmon pink

10:55

one a base one. simplicity.

10:57

Previous version with these suits

10:59

date back to the Sistine

11:01

back then Fredericks filled his

11:03

wardrobe with them. He. Bought

11:06

them second hand from shops created

11:08

specifically for so called able ways

11:10

like him. Frederick.

11:14

Loved those suits. She still does.

11:17

But there were, also in some

11:19

ways stifling this elaborate European. Cars

11:21

play that many Congolese had to do just

11:23

to be treated like human beings. So.

11:27

How do we get some? That's to

11:29

the irreverence. And and freedom of

11:31

the supporters. I was led

11:33

to the answer. While sitting in notoriously

11:36

awful consoles, the traffic. One

11:41

afternoon I was trying to get to an

11:44

interview when my taxi lurch to a stop

11:46

yet again. In front of an old

11:48

shipping container, it had been converted into a

11:50

shoe store. There. Was a sign

11:52

outside featuring a life sized photo of

11:54

a middle aged man and aviators dressed

11:57

head to toe in black leather. It.

12:00

said, Papa Grief, Supreme

12:02

Magistrate and Sapur of the State.

12:05

When I spoke with the Supreme Magistrate, I

12:07

explained that I was trying to figure out

12:09

exactly how suits, of all things,

12:11

became such a vital form of self-expression

12:13

in the DRC. Papa

12:15

Grief didn't mention any tailors or designers.

12:18

Instead, he pointed to something else as the

12:20

origin of La Sap, as the Sapur's movement

12:23

is known. The Sap of

12:26

DRC is the music. The

12:29

Sap of the music. The

12:31

Sap in this country was surrounded

12:33

by music. The

12:35

Sap came from this music. And

12:38

then he said, let me show you. So

12:41

the next night, I followed Papa Grief through a

12:43

hole in a chain-link fence into a

12:45

concrete courtyard. About a

12:47

dozen guys were lounging with their instruments on

12:49

overturned plastic drink crates. As

12:52

we walked in, Papa Grief's band started

12:54

to play. This

13:07

is Congolese Roomba. Its roots

13:09

date back to the 1940s, when

13:11

Belgian officials were sniff-testing Evo-loues at

13:13

the doors of their office jobs.

13:16

Like the Evo-loues, the musicians of

13:18

that era also dressed in suits and

13:20

ties. But unlike the Evo-loues, their

13:23

fashion frame of reference wasn't

13:25

white Belgians. Instead,

13:30

Congolese artists took their fashion cues

13:32

from Black American jazz musicians, who

13:34

had been dispatched to Leopoldville to

13:36

play for U.S. troops during World

13:38

War II. Locals

13:41

also went to those shows and were awestruck by

13:43

what they saw on stage. These

13:48

jazz artists

13:51

were impeccably dressed in

13:53

suits and bow ties.

13:57

D.D.A. Mamoungi is a Congolese writer,

13:59

historian, and poet. politician. He

14:01

says that Congolese civilians used to go

14:03

see these military bands in concert, and

14:05

they loved how the Black American groups

14:07

wore their western-style suits. We

14:10

are not from the Congolese, but

14:12

from the European Union. From

14:15

the European Union. From

14:17

the European Union. From the European

14:19

Union. From the European Union.

14:22

What struck local artists, Didier says, was

14:24

that the Jazz men were Black like

14:27

the Congolese, but they dressed like Europeans.

14:30

In fact, he says, they dressed better

14:32

than Europeans. I asked

14:34

him, better in what sense? He said,

14:36

in the sense of style. Although

14:38

jazz music never really took off

14:41

in the Congo, jazz fashion definitely

14:43

did. Congolese musicians quickly

14:45

began to imitate the way the

14:47

Black American artists dressed. Rumba

14:50

fashion looked like it was straight out of Harlem,

14:52

matching pinstriped suits, glossy

14:54

loafers, colorful pocket squares.

14:57

The ingredients of these outfits were similar

14:59

to what the Evoluees wore, but

15:01

with flashier colors and bigger accessories.

15:04

For Congo's department stores, this was

15:07

awesome news. It meant the

15:09

suit and tie was now verifiably cool.

15:12

Store owners started hiring musicians as brand

15:14

ambassadors who would wear their suits to

15:16

concerts and bars, and even sometimes sing

15:18

about them to drum up business. And

15:23

that's how

15:25

Congolese began to equip music with

15:28

dressing up. The musicians themselves made

15:30

clothes a central element of the

15:32

music. Over

15:37

the next couple of decades, the music really

15:39

took off, as Congolese artists

15:41

started touring the world. By

15:43

the 1970s, Rumba filled clubs from

15:46

Kinshasa to Paris. Papa

15:48

Grief grew up in this era. The

16:00

musicians understood that they were in front of the

16:02

world now, so they really wanted

16:04

to look good. The

16:10

patron synodist music was a flamboyant

16:12

singer with a high, haunting voice,

16:14

who went by the stage name,

16:16

Papa Wimba. As

16:23

Papa Wimba toured the globe, he'd

16:25

collect luxurious clothes by European and

16:28

Japanese designers, adding new flamboyant

16:30

to the more classic suit-and-tie look of

16:32

Rumba artists. He strutted

16:34

on stage in checkered safari suits with

16:36

piss helmets and neon yellow bell-bottoms with

16:39

psychedelic print shirts. He

16:41

was partial to denim, crushed velvet,

16:43

and floor-length fur coats, which he wore

16:45

even in the sticky tropical heat. And

16:48

he loved, loved a

16:50

fine-tailored suit. Here's

16:53

Papa Wimba explaining in a 2004 documentary

16:55

why he gravitated to such extravagant

16:58

clothes early in his career. I'm

17:00

always a bit different because all the singers were

17:02

doing the same thing. So I say to myself,

17:04

I must find a gimmick, you know? Turn

17:14

everybody on, you've got to turn the

17:17

young people on. Fans

17:19

were already used to seeing Congolese musicians

17:21

as style icons. But at

17:24

a talk he gave in 2015, Papa

17:26

Wimba described how he and other Rumba

17:28

artists turned their shows into all-out fashion

17:30

contests. In

17:34

the 1970s, when we started our

17:36

musical careers, there was a group of

17:38

young people who came from Brazil to

17:40

take part in a closing battle in

17:42

Kinchez. This

17:47

is where we should clarify that there are

17:49

two Congos. One is the

17:52

DRC, with the capital Kinchez colonized by

17:54

the Belgians. The

17:56

other one, just across the Congo River,

17:58

was colonized by the Farsi. French. Its

18:01

capital is Brazzaville. Rumba

18:03

lovers would take fairies back and forth

18:05

between the two cities, where there'd

18:07

be fashion showdowns wherever Papawimba and other

18:10

artists were performing. Well-dressed

18:12

fans faced off, strutting

18:14

and posing, showing off designer clothes,

18:17

as crowds whistled and shouted for the best

18:19

dressed. Those outfits often

18:21

came from the overflowing closets of

18:24

the musicians themselves. Rumba

18:26

artists collected high-end fashion while on

18:28

tour, and they'd often sell those

18:30

pieces used to fans who scrimped

18:32

and saved for months to buy

18:35

them. Or fans would get other

18:37

Congolese traveling abroad to bring designer

18:39

European clothes back home to Kinshasa

18:41

and Brazzaville. It's not clear

18:43

exactly who decided this cult of luxury

18:46

fashion needed a name. But

18:48

by the mid-1970s, its acolytes

18:50

were calling themselves sappours, a

18:53

play on la sapp, a French slang

18:55

word for clothing. The

18:57

sappours added a Congolese flourish

18:59

to the term by making

19:01

sape, an acronym that means

19:04

the Society of Ambiance Makers, an

19:06

elegant person. La

19:12

sapp was about dressing up to look

19:14

good, to look elegant. It

19:16

was also about the ambiance, the

19:18

glow that you the sappour in

19:21

your fine beautiful form-aware brought into

19:23

the world. In

19:27

one of Papa Wimba's songs, Aisa

19:30

Nazawa, he has a line that's

19:32

become like a creed to the sappour. It

19:34

goes like this. What was he

19:36

like? Well dressed, well

19:38

shaved, well perfumed. That

19:54

little hymn became shorthand for a

19:56

much bigger philosophy or sappology. Unlike

19:59

Papa Wimba, At Sarpoemba, most Congolese Rumba fans

20:01

couldn't really afford a closet full of

20:03

silk shirts and designer suits. But

20:06

the Sarpors believed that if you could find

20:08

a way to dress expensively, the world would

20:11

treat you like an expensive person, whether you

20:13

were a famous Rumba musician or a construction

20:15

worker. Here's Papa Grief again. Clothing

20:18

changes a person. We

20:32

recognize students are students by their

20:34

uniforms. We recognize professional

20:36

athletes by their jersey, the wear.

20:39

We know lawyers by their robes and

20:42

doctors by their coats. You

20:44

know a soldier when you see them because of

20:46

the uniforms too. This

20:48

is how you know who someone is.

21:04

To the Sarpors, fine formal wear announced

21:06

to the world that you were the

21:08

kind of person who deserved luxury. In

21:10

the grand scheme, suits are a small thing, but

21:13

Lassat formed as proof that anyone could

21:15

be a person who mattered, just by

21:17

looking the part. For

21:20

a lot of young Congolese, that idea

21:22

was extraordinary, so extraordinary that it didn't

21:24

matter that you were going to have

21:26

to totally break the bank to make

21:28

it happen. That's how Yinda

21:30

Gaby felt. When she was 20

21:32

years old, in the early 1980s, she

21:35

went to a Papa Wemba concert in Kinshasa. She

21:38

watched as he walked on stage wearing a

21:40

floor-length black Versace coat, and she just

21:42

couldn't stop looking at it. She

21:55

says when she saw that jacket, it was

21:57

love at first sight. thunderbolt

22:00

going through her. Yinda

22:03

became a woman obsessed. Since

22:05

Papa Wimba was a distant friend of the

22:07

family, she approached him and asked if he'd

22:09

sell her the jacket. He

22:12

said, yes, $400. That

22:14

was a lot of money. She was a

22:17

young mother selling meat at a tiny market

22:19

stall, making at most a couple of dollars

22:21

a day. But she immediately forked over her

22:23

entire savings. Yinda never regretted

22:26

her very expensive purchase. When

22:28

she put on that jacket, people just looked at

22:30

her differently. They spoke to her more respectfully. She

22:33

felt tougher and braver. She became

22:35

a saper. It

22:39

transformed my life. It made me

22:42

known. She

22:46

began spending more and more money on clothes

22:49

and swapping outfits with other sappers. She

22:51

even gave herself a new name. Amiinda

23:01

Gabi. But people know

23:03

me as Mama Minor. Mama

23:06

Minor basically means youthful mother.

23:09

Women sappers are also known as sappoos.

23:12

When she joined the movement in the 80s, there weren't

23:14

many. She still wanted the few. Most

23:16

of her clothes are what we think of as menswear. But

23:19

she says in Les Appes, it doesn't work like that. Menswear

23:29

is a kind of rebel. In

23:32

Les Appes, there's no difference between

23:34

men and women's clothes. There

23:38

was a freedom for women and a

23:40

freedom for men also. If

23:42

a man wants to wear a skirt, he can wear

23:44

a skirt. By

23:51

the 1980s, the sappers had totally

23:53

rebranded European formal wear. The

23:56

Belgians had required Africans to wear

23:58

suits to prove they're European. American

24:01

jazz artists, at least in the eyes of

24:03

the Congolese, had worn suits to affirm their

24:05

dignity. Sapphors were defining

24:08

suits and find fashion again. They

24:11

weren't just cool, they were very

24:13

Congolese. Coming

24:18

up, the infamous dictator who tried to

24:20

kill the Sapphors vibes. That's

24:22

after the break, but first, here's Roman

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29:11

everyone loves Congolese people strutting around

29:13

like the sappwors in bright and

29:16

flamboyant European formal wear. One

29:18

person who hated the idea

29:20

was the president, Mobutu Seseiko.

29:23

If that name sounds familiar, it's because

29:26

Mobutu is notorious for his wild

29:28

exploitation of the DRC. He

29:30

conspired with the CIA to

29:32

have the Congo's first prime

29:34

minister, Patrice Lumumba assassinated. And

29:36

when Mobutu took over in the mid 1960s, he

29:40

quickly became a kleptocratic dictator

29:42

of note. He enjoyed

29:44

riding his yacht down the Congo and

29:46

chartering Concord jets for weekend trips to

29:48

his personal castle in Spain. Stuff

29:50

like that. Mobutu despised the

29:52

way that Belgian colonists had tried to

29:55

bleach the Congolese of their own cultures.

29:58

Here he is explaining why he was. fed

30:00

up with Europe's influence in the Congo. To

30:03

exploit the black men, the colonizer

30:05

wiped out African traditions,

30:07

languages, and cultures. In

30:19

short, totally negating the black

30:21

men so that he thinks,

30:23

speaks, eats, dresses, laughs, and

30:25

breathes like a white man.

30:29

As president, Mobutu took a hard

30:31

turn towards nationalism. He

30:34

changed the country's name to Zaire, a word

30:36

derived from an indigenous term for the Congo

30:38

River. And he scrapped

30:40

colonial city names like Leopoldville and

30:42

Stanleyville. He also banned Western

30:45

names like Marie and Pierre. For

30:47

him, the point was to rid Zaire of

30:49

the symbols of Belgian colonialism. Mobutu

30:52

called this new policy authenticity.

30:56

The way it's done, as

31:00

a movement of decolonization,

31:03

complete, disease, is

31:06

Congolese. Congolese scholar Didier

31:08

Maimungi says Mobutu thought of

31:10

authenticity as a movement to

31:12

completely decolonize the Congolese spirit.

31:15

For Mobutu, it was crucial that

31:17

all Zaireans show unwavering faith in

31:19

his new program. In

31:25

a documentary about Mobutu, he's shown sitting

31:28

on a throne made of carved wood

31:30

and green velvet. The

31:32

dictator is watching, pleased, as

31:34

a room full of people

31:37

robotically parrot lines praising authenticity

31:39

and Zaire. Mobutu

31:50

also believed, like the Sephors, that how

31:53

you dressed was directly linked to who

31:55

you were. But he

31:57

wanted people to look Zairean. In

32:00

his early days as the leader of Zaire,

32:02

when he was hobnobbing with western kings and

32:04

presidents, Mobutu typically wore a

32:06

classic suit and tie. But

32:09

in the early 1970s, he did a fashion 180. If

32:12

you've ever seen a photo of Mobutu, there's

32:14

a very good chance he's dressed as follows.

32:17

His trademark leopard skin cap, big

32:19

thick buddy holly glasses, a carved

32:22

wooden walking stick, and something

32:24

that he'd invented that looks kind of like

32:26

a cross between a lightweight blazer and a

32:28

dress shirt buttoned up to the collar. He

32:31

called this new creation the abacost.

32:35

Abacost is short for abal kostum,

32:37

which literally means down with the

32:39

suit. And it was Mobutu's

32:42

personal response to the European suit and tie.

32:44

Well, it was his personal response that

32:47

he more or less copied directly from

32:49

China. It

32:53

had what was then called a

32:56

mao collar, but to make it

32:58

a bit different, the collar was

33:00

slightly elongated with the scarf in

33:02

the place of a tie. And

33:04

voila, the abacost. As

33:10

part of authenticity, Mobutu had come up

33:13

with a new national dress code, and

33:15

he made the abacost the official office

33:18

uniform in Zaire. And

33:20

then to round off his down with

33:22

the suit messaging, he actually made it

33:24

against the law for men to wear

33:27

Western suits and ties. But

33:29

bands are made to be broken,

33:31

and the dictator's anti-suit laws certainly

33:33

didn't stop the saphores from continuing

33:35

to flaunt their fanciest clothes. And

33:38

suddenly, dressing like a European dandy

33:40

took on a whole new political

33:43

connotation. Now Lassap was

33:45

an act of rebellion against the

33:47

eccentric dictator. Lassap was

33:50

a joy, and that

33:52

alone was a revolt against

33:55

Mobutu. It

34:00

was a statement because it said, you

34:04

have forbidden us to live our lives like

34:06

we want. You have forbidden

34:08

us to speak as we want, but

34:11

there's a space that a dictator

34:13

like you cannot control, and

34:15

that is our body. The

34:22

Sapphors' flashy, uber-expensive style was

34:24

an act of resistance in another way,

34:26

too. Because here's the thing.

34:29

By the 1980s, Mobutu Zaia was

34:31

melting down. As

34:33

part of Autenticite, he seized

34:35

foreign-owned businesses and mostly let them

34:37

rot. Commodities tanked, and the

34:39

country was plunged into debt. Oh,

34:42

and Mobutu was stealing crazy amounts of

34:44

money, something like half the national budget

34:47

each year. The dictator himself

34:49

talked about how broke his country was. Many

34:56

doctors are examining a financially sick

34:59

Zaia. Someone shocked

35:01

treatment, others want radical surgery.

35:09

As Zaia's economy crumbled, so did

35:11

its infrastructure. And in

35:13

the midst of those dark days, Sapphors

35:15

could be seen strutting down Kinshasa streets,

35:18

littered with potholes and gurgling with raw

35:20

sewage in their designer trench

35:23

coats and thousand-dollar crocodile loafers. The

35:25

Sapphors weren't just pushing back against Mobutu's

35:28

dress code. They seemed to

35:30

be an open rebellion against their country's bleak

35:32

reality. There was so little

35:34

money to be had, and here they were choosing to

35:36

blow it on, like, pocket watches

35:38

and fedoras. As if

35:40

to say, we refuse to let these

35:43

difficult circumstances ruin our ambiance or scuff

35:45

our fine leather boots. In

35:47

a larger, grand scheme of

35:49

the social realities of what's happening

35:52

in the Congo, it's frivolous, right?

35:54

It's endless activity. This is author

35:56

Shantrel Lewis again. Anytime

36:00

someone can use

36:03

resources to create the type of reality

36:05

that they want to live, and even

36:07

if that is to imagine this luxury

36:10

lifestyle, I believe that's an act

36:12

of power and agency and resistance.

36:15

Eventually, Zaire's economic situation forced

36:17

many to leave the country.

36:20

That migration accelerated in the mid-1990s

36:22

after Mobutu was deposed by a

36:24

rebel army and then a brutal

36:27

civil war erupted. As

36:29

hundreds of thousands of Zairean migrants fanned

36:31

out across the world, they took the

36:33

culture of La Sine with them. Especially

36:38

to Europe, where sappwars now had regular

36:41

access to brands and styles that had

36:43

been hard to come by at home.

36:46

The tradition of sappwar fashion duels found

36:48

new life in the nightclubs of Paris

36:51

and Brussels. European

36:53

filmmakers began capturing sappour culture for

36:55

a global audience. In

36:59

a 2004 documentary, a group

37:01

of sappwars are standing in

37:03

a plaza in Belgium boasting

37:05

about the brands they're wearing,

37:07

Comme des Garçons, Versace, and

37:09

Yoji Yamamoto. One

37:14

of the sappwars points at the camera

37:16

and declares in Lingala, this

37:18

is the story of wicked fashion.

37:21

By the early 2000s, sappwars were getting

37:24

attention around the world. At

37:26

the same time, journalists and photographers

37:28

started traveling to Africa to report

37:31

on sappwars culture in Kinshasa and

37:33

Brazzaville. That's one of

37:36

the phenomena that made the sapphire

37:38

culture so prominent was

37:41

that it occurred during the

37:43

time when social media began to be

37:45

on a rise. For now, the

37:47

sapphire were the subjects

37:50

of everyday photographers, which

37:52

then opened up their world to

37:55

all of us. Last

38:00

year, Congo hosted the Francophone games,

38:03

a kind of Olympics for the French-speaking world.

38:06

The opening ceremony in Kinshasa was a

38:08

medley of traditional Congolese dance, song,

38:10

and puppetry. And

38:13

then, in the middle of the show,

38:15

the stadium suddenly went completely black. A

38:18

row of yellow taxis appeared out

38:20

of the darkness, headlights blazing. Then,

38:23

the car doors flung open. A

38:26

bunch of people in pinstripe suits

38:28

and foot-tall top hats and iridescent

38:30

gold blazers started pouring out. Seeing

38:39

the saffors on such a big stage, it

38:41

was clear to me that they had gone

38:43

mainstream, in the best possible way. This

38:46

bold, extravagant cult of luxury fashion used

38:49

to be counterculture. But

38:51

when I was in Kinshasa, many Congolese told me

38:53

that now, la sappe se

38:55

notre patrimoine nationale. La

38:58

sappe is our national heritage. 99%

39:07

Invisible was reported this week by

39:09

Ryan Lenora Brown and produced and

39:12

edited by me, Christopher Johnson. Mixed

39:15

and sound designed by Martine Gonzalez, music by

39:17

Swan Rael and Keiko Donald. Fact-checking

39:20

by Graham Heysha. Special

39:23

thanks this week to Kristin Leciste,

39:26

Yves Sambu, Leon Sambu, Kati

39:28

Toza, and our fixer in

39:30

Kinshasa, Chopra Kabambi. Also

39:33

thanks to Nkumu Katali, Malia Mungu

39:35

Mahandi for the voiceovers, and

39:37

the Mwambila Congo Dance Company. Roman

39:40

Mars is our supreme magistrate and ambiance

39:42

maker. Kati Toza is

39:44

our executive producer. Kurt

39:47

Kallstedt is our digital director. Delaney Hall is our

39:49

senior editor. The rest

39:51

of our incredible team includes

39:53

Chris Barube, Jason De Leon,

39:56

Emmett Fitzgerald, Vivian Lay, Lasha

39:58

Madon, Joe Rosen, and Rosenberg, Gabriella

40:01

Gladney, Kelly Prime,

40:03

Jacob Maldonado-Medina, Sarah

40:06

Baik, and Nina Pertuk. The

40:08

99% Invisible logo was created by

40:10

Stephan Lawrence. We

40:13

are part of the Stitcher and

40:15

SiriusXM Podcast family, and this episode

40:17

was produced in our studios and

40:20

offices in beautiful, chaotic,

40:23

midtown Manhattan. You

40:25

can find us on all the usual social

40:27

media sites, as well as our new Discord

40:29

server. There's a link to that, and

40:32

you can go off listening to

40:34

every single solitary past episode of

40:37

99PI at 99pi.org.