When Mantuila Francois Nyombo was a little boy in what is now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, he took apart his father’s radio. “I wanted to get someone to come out to teach me how to play music,” he says. His father, a dean at a Catholic school and a strict disciplinarian, responded by punishing him, a common occurrence: Instead of studying, Nyombo would listen to classical music on the radio until he fell asleep. Sometimes his siblings would wake him up before their father came home, but Nyombo still spent a lot of time restricted to his room on weekends, studying and crying. He fashioned himself a makeshift guitar–two wire strings attached to a board. “The strings were so hard that my fingers would bleed, but I played so much that I developed calluses so I could play even longer.”
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When Nyombo was ten an uncle in nearby Brazzaville invited him to visit. His newfound freedom was irresistible, and he stayed for two years. All he wanted to do was play guitar, so despite his shyness he hung around with all the bands he could find, studying at the feet of traditional Congolese musicians and imitating the music he heard on the radio. Eventually his father wrote him to come home because his mother was very ill. It was a ruse, but it worked.
Nyombo went home in 1968 but soon signed up for another tour of Europe with soukous musician Tabu Ley Rochereau, hoping to find someplace to study classical guitar. The Congolese embassy in Paris, encouraged by Kabasele, found a Cuban musician to sponsor him.When the band returned to Africa, Nyombo stayed behind.
He leaves Monday for a six-month stay. While there he’ll continue his to do research for his PhD, and he also hopes to work on a project with the musicians who trained him years ago. “I’m trying to build up a repertoire of Congolese music from these guys, who are all 70 to 80 years old now. They still play on the original instruments. I’d like to record them, maybe make a video. I’m looking for sponsors.”
