Jean-Bosco Mwenda - Mwenda wa Bayeke -African Guitar Legend

Jean Bosco Mwenda, also known as Mwenda wa Bayeke (1930-1990) was a pioneer of Congolese fingerstyle acoustic guitar music.
He was also popular in other African countries, particularly East Africa, and in the late 1950s and early 1960s was briefly based in Nairobi, where he had a regular radio show and became a profound influence on a generation of Kenyan guitarists. Along with his friend and partner Losta Abelo, and his cousin Edouard Masengo, Bosco defined the Congolese acoustic guitar style.
His influences included traditional music of Zambia and the Eastern Congo, Cuban groups like the Trio Matamoros, and cowboy movies. Bosco was born in 1930 at Bunkeya, a village near Likasi (then called Jadotville), Haut-Katanga Province in then Belgian Congo, but lived most of his life in Lubumbashi, where in addition to playing music he had a job in a bank and with the local mining company, managed other bands, and owned a hotel on the Zambian border.
At the invitation of Pete Seeger, Mwenda performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1960. Although he retreated from the recording studio for more than a quarter of a century, his return in 1988 showed that he had continued to grow as a guitarist and singer (in the Swahili language) during the hiatus.
He died September 1990 at a car accident in Zambia.

a detailed biography and samples

interview


his last recordings-as a bonus track,i have included the original version of Masanga.

Legend