The word Rhumba means navel where while dancing, a man and woman danced while their navel faced opposite the other’s

The UNESCO summit approved the two nations to add rhumba to their Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list, where it joins Cuban rhumba, the Central African Republic’s polyphonic pygmy music and the drums of Burundi.

“These treasures from Congo and exported throughout the world are part of our pride,” DRC government spokesman Patrick Muyaya tweeted last week in anticipation of the announcement.

“It is our common duty to promote rhumba,” he added.

Specialists have located rhumba’s origins in the ancient central African kingdom of Kongo, a kingdom located in central Africa where people practiced a dance called Nkumba.

The word means navel where while dancing, a man and woman danced while their navel faced opposite the other’s.

It was through slave trade that ancient Africans brought their music and culture across the Atlantic through which later brought in existence the birth of jazz music in North America and rhumba in South America.

In recent times, traders brought the music back to the African continent through records and guitars.

Andre Yoka Lye, a director at the DRC’s National Arts Institute in the capital Kinshasa told AFP that the modern version of rhumba is over 100 years old and symbolises cities and bars.

The genre of Rhumba has been marked by the political history of the two nations before and after independence and is “present in all areas of national life”, Andre noted.

“It also portrays cultural exchange, resistance, resilience and the sharing of pleasure through the different exciting dress code,”Lye said.

Rhumba artists are most times contentious or dressed in scandals.

On Monday, a French court convicted DRC performer Koffi Olomide of holding four of his former dancers against their will during tours but the nationals of both countries say the dance still lives on and they hope its addition to UNESCO’s list will give it greater fame even among Congolese.

“We are the country of rhumba, what will we make of it?”. DRC’s communications minister Muyaya asked.