From Kinshasa

The album's title was originally planned to be From Kinshasa to the Moon: "But World Circuit, with their English not being very strong, didn’t really catch that part! But a lot of the press are taking it on now, so I phoned [World Circuit] to say that they really shouldn’t have changed the title as it conveys the idea that your preconceptions about music from certain places might not be quite right. It’s from a city where you wouldn’t imagine that you’d find all these artists. The guy on the cover is a performance artist and there are tons of people in the city making incredible punky art. Kinshasa’s very good for that, there’s a big artistic subculture and people are instinctive in the way they work."[1]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	88/100[2]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Clash	8/10[4]
Drowned in Sound	10/10[5]
The Guardian	[6]
The Irish Times	[7]
musicOMH	[8]
NME	9/10[9]
Record Collector	[10]
Spin	9/10[11]
Uncut	8/10[12]

From Kinshasa received widespread critical acclaim upon its release. It holds a weighted mean of 88 out of 100 from Metacritic, based on 13 critics,[2] while on another aggregate site AnyDecentMusic?, it holds an 8.6 out of ten, also a weighted average.[13]

Alexis Petridis of The Guardian gave a five-star review of From Kinshasa, describing the album as "like arriving in a bustling, unfamiliar city, a very long way from home: a gripping mix of excitement, apprehension and sensory overload."[6] In his ten-out-of-ten review for Drowned in Sound, Tristan Bath called it "a really classic record for the ages", honoring it as a turning point for music released by African artists.[5] Spin scored the album a nine out of ten, saying that it contributes new aspects in urban music.[11]

Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Paul Simpson stated that, "Though the title is accurate, it undersells how expansive and otherworldly the group's music is; the atmospheric production and cosmic synth textures do make it seem like they're beaming their music into outer space."[3] Concluding the review for Clash Magazine, Nick Annan wrote, "This collision of worlds adds a dystopian edge to the sonic battlefield, the lilting high-life guitars chiming amidst a juggernaut of deep bass, saturated percussion and ravaged european electronics. The enforced progression from Staff Benda Bilili to Mbongwana Star might've been a loss to some but this new incarnation of Ngambali and Nzonza's muse confidently steps outside the sometimes rather cozy confines of 'world' music and into the 21st Century."[4] In the assessment of the album for Record Collector Paul Bowler wrote, "Mbongwana Star concoct an abrasive sound barrage of heavily distorted rumba grooves, here accompanied by post-punk guitar slashings. Channelled through Farrell’s electro blender on the likes of Nganshe, Masobele and the jaw-droppingly brilliant single Malukayi, it becomes a modernised, starkly original strain of dub that suggests fresh tributaries for a rapidly evolving music."[10]

From Kinshasa appeared on of End-of-Year and End-of-Decade lists for a number of publications, including NPR Music's and Rolling Stone's favorite albums of the first half of 2015.[14][15]