For the english translation click here: • EMMANUEL MULEMENA-Mbok...
Emmanuel Mulemena was the most famous Kaonde singer of the 1970s and early 80s, and the most celebrated Kaonde musician of all time.
He was born in Kasempa District in 1937. His father, Mr. Essa Masiposa Mulemena, was a trained and qualified teacher who had received his training at Johnstone Falls School. Johnstone Falls was one of the highest rated schools in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).
Mr. Essa Mulemena graduated from Johnstone Falls in 1935. He went back to Kasempa to start teaching at Mukinge Mission School, and he was one of only five qualified teachers in Kasempa District at that time. There, he raised his family. Among his children was Emmanuel Mulemena. Emmanuel loved music from childhood, singing in the church choir. After finishing school, he became a teacher and taught at Kikoka Mabwe primary school in Kasempa.
As a teacher, he actively taught his pupils music in the 1950s. However, his love for traditional music was met with opposition from the colonial government and the London Mission (formerly SAGM, now Evangelical Church) who fiercely suppressed traditional music and folklore, because, according to them, it promoted spiritism. A former pupil of his once reported that Emmanuel would take the young children of his class into the hills to practice music away from the eyes of Church opposition.
In the early 1960s (c. 1963), Emmanuel left Kasempa and moved to Lusaka to join then Northern Rhodesia Broadcasting Services (now ZNBC), where he met the late musical legend Alick Nkhata. There, he became a presenter and producer on the Kaonde Service. During this time, thanks to the positive influence of Alick Nkhata, Mulemena took his music to another level.
In 1968, Mulemena left broadcasting and joined Malachite Film Studios (then run by the Anglo-American Corporation) in Chingola. During the years that followed, Mulemena became a pioneer in music, mastering the skill of singing in many languages and becoming one of the first African musicians to use a drum machine. He founded the band called Mulemena and the Sound Inspectors, with which he transformed traditional music into modern hits, with a western touch. He also popularized Kaonde Manchancha and Shonongo dance music in Zambia.
Sadly, at the height of his career, Emmanuel Mulemena died, in February 1982, leaving behind a legacy of musical hits that have since been redone over and over again by newer singers. His band changed their name to ‘Mulemena Boys’ in honor of their founder, and in that name, they redid many of Mulemena’s songs, making them hits of the mid-80s. In time, another group of singers performed under the name Junior Mulemena Boys.
Mulemena had a family, and his son John Mulemena became the next Kaonde musical sensation, redoing some of his father’s hits, and recording many new ones.
Article Credit: kaondewordpress.wordpress.com...