Papa Wemba
Born: 1953, Kasai, Congo
Wemba gets credit for launching the Zaiko clan's trademark use of high fashion as a form of social rebellion. Wemba's dashing self-styled look-a 1930s throwback featuring baggy, pleated trousers hemmed above shiny brogues and hair clipped close at the sides-soon earned him the title Pope of the Sapeurs: Society of Ambianceurs and Persons of Elegance. The Sapeurs elevate a clothing fetish to a spiritual level to the extent of boasting their own "religion" called Katinda, which means cloth. The wildness of soukous and the excesses of the Sapeurs can be seen as channeled expressions of free spirits in an environment of political oppression and relentless conformity. During three decades of iron-fisted rule, Mobutu stifled all criticism of his government, and even enforced a national dress code for bureaucrats and businessmen.