Badi

Badi, whose full name is Badibanga Ndeka, is a writer and artist born in Brussels of Congolese descent. For more than twenty years, he has been exploring the points of friction between memory and creation, diaspora and transmission, in work that blends poetry, storytelling, oral tradition, and social engagement. Drawing from a dual cultural background—Belgian and Congolese—he uses this in-between space as raw material through music (rap, slam) and projects such as *Matonge* (2015), which already explored the connections between Brussels and Kinshasa through the lens of the diaspora. But writing has always been central to his work: the need to express, to pass on, and to question what it means to “inherit.” *Lisapo de Matonge* is his first book. In Lingala, *lisapo* means “the story that is passed down.” This collection weaves together personal memories and collective histories, intimate voices and inherited silences. It explores themes of exile, lineage, roots, and reinvention, in a raw, passionate style—sometimes tender, sometimes sharp.