Africa’s Guitar God

WHEN JIMI HENDRIX passed through Paris on one of his tours, a guitarist he was keen to meet was Nicolas Kasanda wa Mikalay — the Congolese finger-picking electric guitar master more widely known as Dr. Nico, or to many across mid-20th century Africa, L’ Eternel Docteur Nico. At around the same time that “Clapton is God” graffiti was appearing on London walls, Africans were calling Dr. Nico the Guitar God.

With good reason. If cascades of gorgeous-to-gritty tone, an effortless flow of sparkling, playful melody, harmonization and dazzling polyrhythmic syncopations make up your idea of six-string divinity, Dr. Nico surely belongs in your pantheon. He came along at an ideal moment in musical history and African history. In the late 1950s and early Sixties, the electric guitar had reached a golden age in its evolution as a musical instrument. As a result, the world