Kabongo began his acting career in 2009, working as an extra on Canadian television series such as
Nikita and
Flashpoint.Throughout the 2010s, Kabongo guest-starred in a variety of television programs, including Call Me Fitz (2012), Murdoch Mysteries (2013), Rookie Blue (2013–2014), and Quantico'' (2015). In 2014, Kabongo portrayed a
gladiator in
Paul W. S. Anderson's romantic historical disaster film
Pompeii. The film won the
Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's
Golden Screen Award for 2014 as the year's top-grossing Canadian film. With filmmaker
Houston Bone (then credited as M. H. Murray), Kabongo co-produced the first season of the web series
Teenagers. Louis Chunovic of
Playback published a piece on the series, writing that "the young creators of
Teenagers had to have plenty of luck, pluck, talent, and grit to get this far. And that portends a Hollywood ending". Kabongo also starred as the lead male
protagonist in the series.
Teenagers received positive reviews from critics and was frequently compared to the
Degrassi franchise and the
UK television series Skins. The series amassed millions of views on YouTube over the course of three seasons. For his performance in the second season of
Teenagers, Kabongo earned his first
Canadian Screen Award nomination in
2016. event in 2017|alt= In 2016, Kabongo produced and starred in ''A Man's Story
, a short film for which he received funding from bravoFACT. The short film premiered at the ReelWorld Film Festival. That year, he also played a supporting role in Antibirth'', which premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival and was released on September 2, 2016, in the U.S., by
IFC Midnight. In September 2016,
CBC announced it had commissioned a one-hour drama series that follows the star players of an under-21
soccer academy in
Montreal, titled
21 Thunder, with Kabongo slated to star as one of the lead characters, an
Ivory Coast mid-fielder named Junior Lolo. The series premiered in Canada on July 31, 2017, to generally positive reviews. Also that year, Kabongo appeared in three episodes of the CBC series
Frankie Drake Mysteries as a boxer named Moses, and he starred opposite
Mouna Traoré in
Brown Girl Begins, a
post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by
Sharon Lewis. In 2020, he starred in an episode of the
CBS All Access series
Star Trek: Discovery as V’Kir. That year, he also played a supporting role in the Canadian political comedy film
Québexit, which premiered at the
Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival in September 2020. Kabongo received a second
Canadian Screen Award nomination in 2022, for his leading performance in the television film
Death She Wrote. He received a third nomination in
2023 for this supporting performance in the web series
Chateau Laurier. He won several other awards for his performance in Chateau Laurier'' at web series festivals. In 2022, he was cast in
April Mullen’s sci-fi thriller,
Hello Stranger. That film, later retitled
Simulant, was released theatrically in Canada by
Mongrel Media on April 7, 2023. Kabongo was featured in the film alongside a cast that included
Sam Worthington and
Simu Liu. Kabongo described the film as a "wild rollercoaster." The film premiered at the 2024
Pan African Film Festival in the U.S., and held its Canadian premiere the following week at the 2024
Toronto Black Film Festival with two sold out screenings. It also screened in the
Borsos Competition program at the 2024
Whistler Film Festival. == Influences ==