Charles Mwamba (Dechaud)

While history crowns his younger brother, the virtuosic Dr. Nico Kasanda, as a guitar god, Nico himself boldly admitted that he was entirely a creation of his elder brother, Charles Mwamba, aka Dechaud. It was Dechaud who brought acoustic guitars home from early sessions with musicians at the Opika label, the birthplace of Le Grand Kallé et l’African Jazz, and taught a young Nico how to arrange his fingers on the fretboard. Though the student quickly surpassed the teacher in skill and creative stature, forcing Dechaud to live in his younger brother's shadow, their musical fates remained deeply intertwined. They traveled to Paris together in January 1960 for the historic independence fete, and when African Jazz fractured in 1963, they left together to form African Fiesta alongside Tabu Ley. There, the siblings created a legendary dual guitar formation comparable to George and Wilson Peter of Simba Wanyika, with Nico playing solo while Dechaud anchored the background on rhythm.

Plucking entirely without a plectrum, Dechaud established structural rumba rhythm patterns so essential that author Gary Stewart noted in Rumba on the River they remain foundational to Congolese music to this day. Beyond his rhythm work, Dechaud was an astute composer responsible for the evergreen hit Afrika Mokili Mobimba, a track so popular it has become an unofficial anthem for live rumba bands across the continent. Despite his genius, tragedy mirrored his loyalty. When the band eventually collapsed due to Nico's poor management, Dechaud followed his brother into moonlighting for other bands, and as Nico battled severe alcoholism, Dechaud similarly turned to the bottle. Before his death in 1999 at age 64, Dechaud had long quit active music, but classic archival clips of the duo playing face to face in concert immortalize a family that contributed more than its fair share to the genre.