The nostalgia of a time you never lived.
The longing for a home that was never truly home.

With Batila’s new acoustic EP « In light », you drift into a place between memory and imagination - a space where rhythm soothes wounds it never caused, and melodies heal hearts they’ve never broken. Your journey begins in the Congo, with instantly recognizable rumba notes and percussive warmth - familiar yet new. As the voyage unfolds, the sound gently migrates westward: traces of bossa nova, subtle electric guitar echoes, and melodic textures that blur borders.

It’s a careful blend of old Congolese rumba, spoken word, and modern storytelling, sung in Lingala, French, and English - a truly international language of emotion. The sound is warm, round, poetic, but also hypnotic - like the rhythm of a ritual, guiding you into a quiet trance.

That trance begins the moment you embark - carried by « In light », repetitive rhythms that sound like train wheels rolling through time: from a carriage in the 1930s, to a traditional ceremony in Central Africa in 1987, to a call for revolution in 2025. This song is carried by a distinctly Pan-African spirit, enriched by the presence of exceptional artists: Nigerian jazz trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist Etuk Ubong, virtuoso percussionist Huguette Tolinga from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the unmistakable Neo-Soul voice of Ghana’s Susan Augustt.

It’s an invitation to awakening: a movement between dream and awareness, wrapped in layers of percussion.

Each song offers intertwined melodies with intricate polyrhythms and counter-tempos that occasionally sound reversed, achieving an elegant complexity while remaining simple and seamless.

This EP doesn’t just play in your ears; it travels through your whole body - from your head to your toes. It’s music that everyone can relate to; a melody for those who seek calm in the middle of chaos, a sonic medicine for the senses, a ritual for balance.

Batila offers a rare form of serenity: music as healing, rhythm as memory.

You begin in stillness, rise slowly into intensity, drift into trance and return gently to yourself.

In anticipation of the full trance of his upcoming album Mpeve, meaning spirit in Kikongo, this new EP opens a window into Batila’s evolving sonic universe.

In Mpeve, Batila blends Afrobeat, soul, reggae, rumba-rock, and Congolese rhythms into a hypnotic, transformative experience. Backed by his ever-evolving band, The DreamBus, he redefi nes borders and bridges past and future, tradition and innovation, with his self-forged genre called Bantu Soul.

“ In Light” is an EP to listen to on repeat, again and again, until it becomes part of your breathing.

A soundtrack for awakening - soft, circular, endless.