{"id":3649,"date":"2018-04-21T00:05:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-21T04:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=3649"},"modified":"2018-04-21T11:01:34","modified_gmt":"2018-04-21T15:01:34","slug":"lwa-kiyeke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lwa-kiyeke\/","title":{"rendered":"Lwa Kiyeke (Edouard Masengo)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lwa Kiyeke\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xq0Gv6iGaU4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>While <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kijana-muke\/\">studying with Jean-Bosco Mwenda<\/a> in Lubumbashi, I was fortunate to also spend some time with one of the other important local musicians, Edouard Masengo. Bosco and Masengo were cousins and had recorded together in the late fifties and early sixties, but their later lives had followed very different paths. Though famous as a guitarist and singer, Bosco earned his living as a businessman, working for a bank and the local mining company, managing local bands, and at the time I met him was in the process of opening a hotel on the Zambian border.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3652 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Masengo-coke-ad-208x300.jpg?resize=208%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"208\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Masengo-coke-ad.jpg?resize=208%2C300&amp;ssl=1 208w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Masengo-coke-ad.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 208px) 100vw, 208px\" \/>Masengo, by contrast, had little if any career outside music, and his period of success was long in the past. He had gone to Kenya in the late 1950s, apparently as a member of Je-co-ke (short for Jeunes Comiques du Katanga), a touring group of musicians, singers, and dancers from Lubumbashi (then still known as Elizabethville). An advertising agency in Nairobi heard him, took him on, and he soon became a popular radio and recording artist, sponsored by Coca-Cola.<\/p>\n<p>After a few months he brought Bosco &#8212; whose records were well-known throughout Swahili-speaking East Africa &#8212; to join him, and although their acoustic style was supplanted by electric bands in the mid-1960s, they remained familiar as &#8220;oldies&#8221; artists at least into the 1990s. When I hitchhiked from Lubumbashi to Nairobi I found their cassettes still on sale, and had an interesting afternoon at a local record company trying (unsuccessfully) to get Masengo some royalties. One of the cassettes included a half-hour interview with Masengo in which he told his life story interspersed with relevant songs (which I&#8217;ve now <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/gOtwTNBy1o8\">uploaded to Youtube<\/a>), and I was surprised to hear him speaking fluent English, since by the time we met his only European language was French.<\/p>\n<p>As I understand it, Bosco returned to Lubumbashi after a year but Masengo remained a dozen or more years in East Africa and that was the high point of his career. In 1990 he was going through hard times and talked sadly about how much better things had been in Nairobi, saying he might still be popular if he could only get back there.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he was living in a spare room in a small house belonging to his sister \u2014 who had a good job at the mining company \u2014 in a village outside town.<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-3654 \" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/EW-accompanying-Edouard-Masengo.jpg?resize=327%2C196\" alt=\"\" width=\"327\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/EW-accompanying-Edouard-Masengo.jpg?w=500&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/EW-accompanying-Edouard-Masengo.jpg?resize=300%2C180&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 327px) 100vw, 327px\" \/> He was remembered as a notable musician, and I had the pleasure of performing with him at a local hotel and on a national television special. But he was also considered a bit of a sad story, down on his luck and too fond of the local beer.<\/p>\n<p>To me, he was always gracious and inspiring, a supple guitarist and beautiful singer with a gentleness that reminded me of Mississippi John Hurt. I only met him three or four times, but he was consistently encouraging, teaching me songs and exclaiming over my playing \u2014 the Congolese guitarists used only their thumb and index finger to pick, and he kept exclaiming over my using two more fingers, saying, \u201cIf I had only seen that when I was young\u2026\u201d<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3656 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/EW-studying-with-masengo-300x248.jpg?resize=300%2C248\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/EW-studying-with-masengo.jpg?resize=300%2C248&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/EW-studying-with-masengo.jpg?w=384&amp;ssl=1 384w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\u00a0 I recorded one long session in his room, with my friend Dominic adding percussion and me playing lead guitar on a couple of the less distinctively Congolese tunes. (I&#8217;ve uploaded one, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/S9a92b-R5lI\">Mujinga ni nani<\/a>.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>He was also a fine composer, and sang <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ZOl4RYoCQic\">a haunting tribute to his old friend<\/a>, the blind guitarist Losta Abelo, with tears running down his cheeks. My favorite of his songs was this little gem. The guitar part (played with the low E string tuned up to F) is simple as can be, and the lyric even more so, referring to his and Bosco\u2019s ethnic group, the Bayeke:<\/p>\n<p><em>I used to have a bicycle, but now I go in the Kiyeke way.<br \/>\n<\/em><em>I used to have a bicycle, but now I go in the Kiyeke way.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In the Kiyeke way, sir, in the Kiyeke way\u2014<br \/>\n<\/em><em>In the Kiyeke way, that is to say, on foot.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While studying with Jean-Bosco Mwenda in Lubumbashi, I was fortunate to also spend some time with one of the other important local musicians, Edouard Masengo. Bosco and Masengo were cousins and had recorded together in the late fifties and early sixties, but their later lives had followed very different paths. Though famous as a guitarist &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lwa-kiyeke\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Lwa Kiyeke (Edouard Masengo)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lwa Kiyeke (Edouard Masengo) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lwa-kiyeke\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lwa Kiyeke (Edouard Masengo) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While studying with Jean-Bosco Mwenda in Lubumbashi, I was fortunate to also spend some time with one of the other important local musicians, Edouard Masengo. Bosco and Masengo were cousins and had recorded together in the late fifties and early sixties, but their later lives had followed very different paths. Though famous as a guitarist &hellip; Continue reading Lwa Kiyeke (Edouard Masengo) &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lwa-kiyeke\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-04-21T04:05:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-04-21T15:01:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Masengo-coke-ad-208x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/lwa-kiyeke\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/lwa-kiyeke\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Lwa Kiyeke (Edouard Masengo)\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-04-21T04:05:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-04-21T15:01:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/lwa-kiyeke\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":682,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/lwa-kiyeke\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2019\\\/04\\\/Masengo-coke-ad-208x300.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/lwa-kiyeke\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/lwa-kiyeke\\\/\",\"name\":\"Lwa Kiyeke (Edouard Masengo) - 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I've already posted a bunch of songs I learned from Bosco (\"Masanga,\" \"Kijana Muke,\" \"Bibi Theresa,\" and \"Kuolewa\"), and this is another --\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/EW-studying-with-masengo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/masanga\/","url_meta":{"origin":3649,"position":1},"title":"Masanga (Jean-Bosco Mwenda)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was in high school, I spent hundreds of hours at the public library, which was between the two high schools (Rindge Tech and Cambridge High & Latin), listening to records. Thanks to the music librarian, Ken Williams, that library had a terrific collection of jazz, blues, international and\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/masanga\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Boscos-lyric-to-Masanga.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3567,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kijana-muke\/","url_meta":{"origin":3649,"position":2},"title":"Kijana Muke (Jean-Bosco Mwenda)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"March 31, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I've loved a lot of musicians, but only twice made serious pilgrimages to study with anyone. The first was Dave Van Ronk, for whom I spent a year in the wilds of Greenwich Village; the second was Jean-Bosco Mwenda, for whom I traveled to Lubumbashi, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/john-Mwenda-Bosco-300x264.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4824,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/jamaica-farewell\/","url_meta":{"origin":3649,"position":3},"title":"Jamaica Farewell (Harry Belafonte, Perry Lederman)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 29, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Like pretty much everyone born in the 1950s, I can't remember not knowing \"Jamaica Farewell.\" I never learned the words, but could sing all the verses -- and still can, though I more often play it as an instrumental. By the time I got seriously interested in guitar, I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Belafonte-Calypso.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Belafonte-Calypso.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Belafonte-Calypso.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3619,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/bibi-theresa\/","url_meta":{"origin":3649,"position":4},"title":"Bibi Theresa (Jean-Bosco Mwenda)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another I learned from Jean-Bosco Mwenda during the month I spent studying with him in Lubumbashi. It is a song of love and longing, which would make it pretty standard fare in a lot of places, but is less common in the Congolese repertoire, where a lot of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Me-and-Dominic-Zaire-1990.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3746,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hey-now-baby\/","url_meta":{"origin":3649,"position":5},"title":"Hey Now, Baby (Professor Longhair)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I first heard Professor Longhair on a terrific album of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival -- also the first place I heard Allen Toussaint and Earl King -- and it was love at first listen. So I began acquiring his albums, and the more I heard, the more\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/jazzfest-lp.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3649"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3720,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3649\/revisions\/3720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}