JUNIOR VANGU: THE DAUPHIN OF THE DR CONGO JOURNALISM

A dauphin is a crown prince who in principle is already king, but whose enthronement is delayed due to his tender age; pending his attaining maturity he is under the tutelage of a grooming regent. The microcosm of the DRC journalism has gotten a dauphin.

His name is Junior Vangu, aka Champignon-Chevignon.  He deservedly is the dauphin because of the exceptionally swift, breathtaking, but genial way wherewith he ascended to stardom.

Conceiver, producer and TV presenter, Junior “Champignon-Chevignon” Vangu has been living in London, United Kingdom, for ten years. Yet, outside Europe and North America, he enjoys a dazzling popularity in a significant portion of the Congolese Diaspora of South Africa, even though he has never visited Nelson Mandela’s country. This popularity is due to his TV programmes and DVD films that are benefiting from the dynamic promotion insured by the AMAGEP staff and Afriquechos Magazine.

To conquer the South African market, « Champignon-Chevignon » had grabbed the opportunity offered by the perspective of the 2010 FIFA World Cup to play the card of proximity. He started promoting, across Europe and North America, South Africa’s image and businesses, as well as the socioeconomic, cultural and media life of the Congolese Diaspora in this country. And simultaneously, he helped bring some European-based media to South Africa, including Congomikili.com and Starvinternational.com. “I observed that, over all the DVDs realized here [in UK], there were only images from the DRC and Europe; therefore the thought of South Africa crossed my mind. I tried to look at this country that was hitherto forgotten. I took into the account the touristic attractiveness of this country and the boom that the showbiz could enjoy consecutively to the organization of the 2010 Football World Cup. That had resulted into the Europe-RSA-DRC triangle”, he said.

However, Champignon is a dauphin without the grooming of any regent; he is a self-made man. In his paradoxical capacity as the dauphin, he was the first to deplores the quality of the rival audiovisual products realized by his compatriots in the United Kingdom; this led him to the decision to do something in the same field, so as, as he said, “to perform as well as the fellow countrymen living in France and South Africa”. Still, things didn’t run smoothly at the outset. It took him a year, from September 2006 to September 2007, to release his maiden DVD—the first of the “Love Plus” series—realized in the First Class Solution studio of London. This DVD was made out of the comic scenario based on the sugar daddies idea—a collaboration of Champignon with a troupe of Kinshasa-based comedians, especially Junior Lusaulu Brown, aka JL Brown Sugar, who for him is an accomplice, “wise and professional at work”. Furthermore, Vangu champions the love of a well-done work and has set up the goal of “redressing the mores in Congolese Diaspora’s milieus, and why not in the country, too?” 

The love of professionalism has brought Junior Vangu to higher level of fame. He ran a sociocultural TV programme that wielded a big impact on the Congolese Diaspora of the western hemisphere: “Masolo ya bolingo” [love debates]. It consisted of Champignon’s setting a love topic and then engaging the TV viewers into the debate through telephone call. It was broadcast on the Starvinternational.com every Thursday, from 09h00 pm to midnight, London time. Furthermore, professionalism led Champignon to fly higher and higher and to reap sweeter fruits. For instance, his services are currently hired by Venus TV, an international, Indian-run channel, where he presents a popular programme called The JVC Show, and broadcast from midnight to 1h00 am, London time. It is watched on Sky 805 and on the following website: www.venustv.tv . Definitely, if he sticks to his genius, know-how, hard work, and morality, Junior Vangu is destined to be the king of the Congolese journalism.

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