Docteur Nico / African Fiesta Sukisa - Dr Nico Presents African Fiesta Sukisa 1966-1974 (3LP+Booklet)

Planet Ilunga presents, in collaboration with the children of Nico Kasanda alias Docteur Nico, an anthology dedicated to African Fiesta Sukisa, available as a 3LP and a digital release (with bonus songs). This release is the fruit of many years of preparations and was realized in close partnership with Liliane Kasanda, Nico’s eldest daughter. Marking forty years since his passing, we felt that the year 2025 was the right time to honor Docteur Nico’s legacy with this original collection.

Almost all of the African Fiesta Sukisa songs were released on Nico’s Sukisa label which translates in Lingala for “the final accomplishment”. The music on Sukisa, crafted by Nico, Dechaud and legendary vocalists such as Chantal, Sangana, Apôtre, Lessa Lassan and Josky, embodies the essence of that powerful phrase with genius and class. The label ran between 1966 and 1975 and released approximately 280 songs. Ngoma also issued the group between 1967 and 1971 and, in addition, reissued material from the Sukisa label. Many of the Sukisa songs have become part of the collective memory of Congolese society and are still heard, discussed, and analyzed daily across digital platforms worldwide, as well as on numerous Congolese radio and television stations.

The album we put together features some of African Fiesta Sukisa’s signature songs alongside never before reissued tracks from the Sukisa catalog. It furthermore contains a large booklet with song commentary, testimonial interviews from well-known musicians, journalists, fans and Nico’s entourage, besides never-before-published photos from the family’s personal archive, illustrating the life and career of the one and only ‘dieu de la guitare’.

Alastair Johnston, author of the book ‘A Discography of Docteur Nico’ and longstanding Planet Ilunga collaborator, designed a stylish booklet and cover using all our collected material. Audifax Bemba, longtime admirer, compiler and connoisseur of Nico’s music, and the author of most of the song commentary in our accompanying and very visual booklet, offers his portrait of Nico Kasanda:

“After displaying technical virtuosity with African Jazz, expert and accomplished guitar with African Fiesta, which musicologist Sylvain Bemba described as a dream guitar, Nico Kasanda was consecrated ‘dieu de la guitare’ by the public in the late sixties. With his band African Fiesta Sukisa, Docteur Nico displays his wide palette of unusual sounds. While exploring the Hawaiian guitar with its clear, airy, plangent, psychedelic effluvia, he continues to replicate the piano comping technique, and adds two missing strings to his bow: a simulation of the sanza (likembé or thumb piano), whose sounds he reproduces right down to the noisemakers of the tiny tin rings on the one hand, and the sounds of the Luba balafon on the other.

The right note, in the right place, at the right time, is the triptych on which Nico Kasanda’s playing is based, a note dressed in the perfect sound. A guitar of pure emotion. With African Fiesta Sukisa, his playing takes a ‘Chopin-esque’ turn, sending out more notes in a sublime adagio. The true artist is the one who simplifies everything. Docteur Nico is a genius of our time, whose style makes him the supreme exponent of the most important guitar school in Congolese music. He is recognized by his peers as the greatest African solo guitarist of all time. Sculpting sound in a tireless quest for beauty, Nico Kasanda has sublimated the guitar throughout his career.”