Category: African

Beautiful fingerstyle guitar work by the master of the style, Congolese artist Mwenda Jean Bosco.

His clean and precise guitar playing has always sounded somewhat baroque to me. I feel that he and Bach could have collaborated on some interesting compositions. This tune repeats the same complex descending line, often with bass runs connecting the sections of the song.

The title “Kwimba nako ni kuzuri” translates loosely to “Singing is also good.” The lyrics seem to allude to someone calling out to their parents for consolation after experiencing deep sadness or reliving memories of troubled times.

Approximate Swahili lyrics and English translation is available via close caption. Please comment if you have any corrections!

Believed to have been recorded circa 1957-58.
Released as Gallotone CO.126.

Credits:
Jean Bosco Mwenda – guitar, vocals
Unknown artist – bottle

Another very scarce Kenyan guitar record on the elusive Mwangaza label founded by musician and producer David Amunga in 1964 – and I believe this side was likely recorded in 1965. This disc came to me with greying grooves full of surface noise – but the music I was able to coax out of it is an amazing listen!

Though 78 rpm records began to be phased out in the U.S. in the late 1950s, they continued to be pressed in various parts of the world well into the 1960s.

Fanuel Amimo was born in 1947 in Western Kenya – so that would have made him around the age of 18 when this record was made. His first recordings were on the Mwangaza label. He played fingerstyle omutibo guitar and here is heard accompanied by a second vocalist and glass bottle percussion.

This song title can be translated as: “Leave the child with me”. The lyrics seem to describe a poor woman with a sick child who begs her neighbors to leave the child in her care. Instead, they forcibly take the child to a traditional healer, where the child dies.

In the 1970s, Amimo would found his own record label, African Beat. He lost his sight later in life.

Amazingly, a video exists of the artist himself performing this song later in his long life in 2018!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo3gO1wmUbE

He was also recorded performing a version of this song in the Mississippi Records 2017 release Usiende Ukalale “Don’t Sleep”; Omutibo From Rural Kenya, which was recorded in Western Kenya by Cyrus Moussavi.
https://mississippirecords.bandcamp.com/album/usiende-ukalale-omutibo-from-rural-kenya

Recorded in Nairobi, Kenya circa 1965.
Released as Mwangaza GT 21.

Credits:
Fanuel Amimo – guitar and vocals
Unknown Artist – harmony vocals, glass bottle

William Osale was a fingerstyle guitarist who performed and recorded in Kenya during the 1950s and 60s. Osale was a rural musician who played in the ‘sukuti’ style – a rhythmic style of finger-style playing invented by George Mukabi that results in a light, ‘bouncy’ sound.

In his “A History of Kenyan Guitar Music: 1945-1980”, John Low writes, “Some rural finger-stylists like George Mukabi and William Osale also had success in the towns, providing Swahili versions of songs that they might sing in local languages back home. The appeal of their songs lay in the fact that many town dwellers had (and still have) strong links with the land, and the themes of these songs, often conservative and sometimes nostalgic, reminded them of the old values.”

The song appears to be a light-hearted song about traveling to Marama area of Western Kenya and getting into trouble involving a girl and her armed relatives.

I do not have a recording date for this record – but will add one if I find a definitive source. My best guess is sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Released as CMS African Record TOP 24.

Credits:
William Osale – guitar, vocals
Unknown Artist – vocal harmony, glass bottle

William Osale was a fingerstyle guitarist who performed and recorded in Kenya during the 1950s and 60s. Osale was a rural musician who played in the ‘sukuti’ style – a rhythmic style of finger-style playing invented by George Mukabi that results in a light, ‘bouncy’ sound.

In his “A History of Kenyan Guitar Music: 1945-1980”, John Low writes, “Some rural finger-stylists like George Mukabi and William Osale also had success in the towns, providing Swahili versions of songs that they might sing in local languages back home. The appeal of their songs lay in the fact that many town dwellers had (and still have) strong links with the land, and the themes of these songs, often conservative and sometimes nostalgic, reminded them of the old values.”

The song appears to be a plaintive love song beckoning a woman named Tanyembe to return to her heartbroken beloved.

I do not have a recording date for this record – but will add one if I find a definitive source. My best guess is sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Released as CMS African Record TOP 24.

Credits:
William Osale – guitar, vocals
Unknown Artist – vocal harmony, glass bottle

A Cameroonian artist recording in Belgian Congo at the Opika studios in Kinshasa. This tune features many of the resident studio musicians of the Opika label such as Tino Baroza and Dechaud (Dr. Nico’s brother) on guitar and Isaac Musekiwa on sax.

Released as Opika 1925.

Credits:
Dikume Lobe Henri – vocals
Tino Baroza – guitar
Taumani Albert – bass
Musekiwa Isaac – saxophone
Charles “Déchaud” Mwamba – guitar

A Cameroonian artist recording in Belgian Congo at the Opika studios in Kinshasa. This tune features many of the resident studio musicians of the Opika label such as Tino Baroza and Dechaud (Dr. Nico’s brother) on guitar and Isaac Musekiwa on sax.

Released as Opika 1925.

Credits:
Dikume Lobe Henri – vocals
Tino Baroza – guitar
Taumani Albert – bass
Musekiwa Isaac – saxophone
Charles “Déchaud” Mwamba – guitar

A call-and-response vocal performance with rhythm accompaniment from Nigeria circa 1950, released on Decca’s WA series.

Recorded during Decca’s second recording tour of West Africa circa 1950.
Released as Decca WA.1563

Francis Humplick was a Tanzanian guitarist, singer, and songwriter who recorded extensively in the late 1950s for African labels such as Gallotone, Troubadour, and His Master’s Voice.

Humplick’s gentle fingerstyle guitar technique and his almost conversational singing style are distinctive and immediately endearing. His two sisters Mary and Thecla provided lovely vocal harmonies and background vocals.

Not much is known about this beautiful song delivered in Chaga.

In 2020, Mississippi Records released a beautiful reissue of transfers which I highly recommend:
https://mississippirecords.bandcamp.com/album/frank-and-his-sisters

Recorded in the late 1950s.
Released as Troubadour BZ.1243.

Credits:
Francis Joseph Humplick – guitar, vocals
Mary Regina Humplick, Thecla Clara Humplick – vocals