During almost all national days, the Muungano National Choir, then under the able leadership of the late Boniface Mganga, entertained Kenyans with riveting songs that still invoke unwavering patriotism.
Entertainment during national days like Jamhuri Day has changed so much so that we now have trouser-sagging performers and comedians during these events.
But it was the 1979 founded Muungano National Choir that remained part of residual memory when the event was over. The songs, some gospel and peppered with patriotic twist, from the globe-trotting choir were infectious for their polyrhythmic vocals, triangle ring, African drums, hosho rattles and kayamba. Muungano’s choral acapella repertoire included Chama Kanu, Heko Jamhuri, Mungu Bariki Kenya, Panga Uzazi and Enzi ya Nyayo.
But it was their 1988 recording of Missa Luba that gave it a global mass appeal after fleshing Fr Guido Haazen’s Congolese African Catholic mass rhythms and releasing them for worldwide distribution. Mganga, one-time MP and assistant minister for Education, died in a road accident in Voi in 2011.
The various Kayambas are off-shoots of Muungano choir.
