English speakers tend to assume that Fela Kuti was the most influential of Africa's pop titans. Not so. That honor goes to the Congo's one and only Franco, the man who codified what we think of as Afropop guitar playing and one of the most exciting bandleaders of the 20th century — the Congo's Chuck Berry and James Brown rolled into one. Originalité collects the first 20 sides Franco cut in the mid '50s, and while he would later grow both wilder and more refined, these are plenty exciting nevertheless.