The following is not all of the lyrics—there's a fast stanza that's untranscribed, and I left out a couple other ones.

Tchico Té, ke ku matau
Disastri falado ma po ku matau
("Tchico Té, what killed you / Supposedly an accident, but it was a club.")

Tchutcha Té, mindjer di Té
Djubi mininus, Africa i assim
("Tchutcha Té, Té's wife / Look after your children, Africa's like this.")

Na ki dinoti i na baiba si distino
Na strada di no tera
I para pa djuda si amigo
Kamarada, oh, kabalido
Kamarada, abo ku matal
("That night he was walking to his destination / In our country's road / He stopped to help his friend / Oh worthless comrade / Comrade, it was you who killed him.")

É bin na falanu kuma, eih
Disastri ku mata Tchico Té
Kamarada, oh, kabalido
Kamarada, abo ku matal
("They came and told us: 'Hey, / It was an accident that killed Tchico Té / Oh worthless comrade / Comrade, it was you who killed him.")

Bo tchoman parentis
Bo tchoman derentis
Bo tchoman Tchutcha di Té oh
Pa no bai na baloba
Pa no mandji kamarada oh
Kabalido
("Call the family for me / Call the relatives for me / Call Tchutcha Té for me, oh / To go to the ceremonial ground / And curse our comrade / Our worthless comrade.")

É bin [na] falano kuma, eih
Disastri ku mata Tchico Té.

Kamarada, oh, kabalido
Kamarada abo [ki ku] matal.

(They told us that, "hey, / an accident killed Tchico Té." // Comrade, oh, worthless comrade / It's you who killed him.)

The word of interest is, of course, kabalido 'worthless'. Ka is the negation in this language, so that makes the word segmentable into ka-balido. And I'm willing to wager that balido is derivationally related to a verb bali 'to be worth'.

None of this is to imply that this is somehow a great discovery, since it's long been known that this language has some pretty original derivational morphology. The most memorable example is amigundadi 'friendship', whose morphology I'll leave as an exercise to the reader...

1. Various Artists, Golden Afrique, Vol. 2. Highlights and Rarities from the Golden Era of African Pop Music (1956-1982): The Great Days of Rumba Congolaise and Early Soukous. 2 CD box set.

   This set is KILLER. Well, ok, I'm only on track 3 of the second CD so far, so I really have only listened to the whole of CD #1, which was dominated by Franco's O.K. Jazz and Sam Mangwana. I already knew I liked Sam Mangwana from a couple of recent albums of his, and I did already have a Franco compilation and it was OK, but my God, the track selection here is killer.

   What is it? Early post-independence Congolese pop music. Very Cuban-influenced, but not the same, and Cubans don't play killer electric guitar.

   I've also got Vol. 1 of this series, which is West African pop (mainly Senegal, Mali, Guinea). Not as nice as this set, though they have a very nicely remastered version of Super Mama Djombo's "Dissan Na M'bera," which, of course, I'm professionally curious about (the song is in Guinea-Bissau Creole).

2. Cesaria Evora, Rogamar.

   Not bad at all. I overall like it a bit better than her previous album, but on the other hand, that one had a few songs that I found far more memorable than this album ("Isolada," "Velocidade," "Ramboia," "Jardim Prometido"). I think the previous album sounds overengineered (AAARGH YOU DAMN MASTERING ENGINEER, LAY OFF THE FUCKING COMPRESSOR), which I hate (can you tell?); this one, on the other hand, sounds underengineered (where are the dynamics?) but overproduced (aaargh, too many damn instruments). Neither is anywhere as good as Miss Perfumado, which is neither overproduced nor over/underengineered. (And the songs are better, too.)

3. Fela Kuti, Expensive Shit/He Miss Road (2 albums in one CD).

   Haven't really listened to this yet. Track #1 sounded alright when I heard it, but I was really tired and kind of dozing off. This is the fourth Fela CD I buy this year. The first I got was Open and Close/Afrodisiac, which I find absolutely amazing. None of the ones I've gotten since have I liked nearly as much as that one.