Missa Luba

Setting of the Latin Mass in Congolese style

The Missa Luba is a setting of the Latin Mass sung in styles traditional to the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was composed by Father Guido Haazen, a Franciscan friar from Belgium, and originally celebrated, performed, and recorded in 1958 by Les Troubadours du Roi Baudouin (King Baudouin's Troubadours), a choir of adults and children from the Congolese town of Kamina in Katanga Province. It would later become the partial basis for a Congolese usage of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite Mass, the Zaire Use.

Father Guido Haazen O. F. M. (Order of Friars Minor) (b. 27 September 1921, d. 20 August 2004) became director of Kamina Central School in what was then the Belgian Congo in September 1953. Within weeks he established an ensemble consisting of a male choir – about forty five boys aged nine to fourteen and fifteen adults – and percussion. In 1957 he received royal consent to name the ensemble Les Troubadours du Roi Bauduoin in honour of the Belgian king Baudouin I. In the same year Haazen and the Baluba people of Kasai and Katanga began developing the Missa Luba from collective improvisations on traditional song forms. It was first celebrated at the Catholic mission of St. Bavo in Kamina on 23 March 1958. The next day, the ensemble left for a tour of Europe, performing the Mass and Congolese folk music in Belgium (where they gave concerts at the Brussels World's Fair, the Netherlands, and Germany (where they sang with the Vienna Boys Choir). The celebrated recording of the Missa Luba by the Troubadours and soloist Joachim Ngoi, a teacher at Kamina Central School, was made at this time.

The music for the Mass was not written down. Father Haazen responded to demand from choirs wanting to perform the piece by publishing a transcription of the recorded version in 1964, with a new edition in 1969. The Kyrie is in the style of a kasala, a Luba song of mourning. The Gloria is improvised in the Kiluba style characteristic of Katanga. The Credo, the longest section of the Mass, is based on five different folk songs linked by improvisations. The text of the Credo refers to the crucifixion of Christ and the vocal part in the Missa Luba is preceded by the customary announcement of death, first on the kyondo (log drum), then on the kikumvi (tom tom). There follows a kilio (elegy) without percussion accompaniment, sung by the solo voice. The Sanctus and the Benedictus were inspired by a Bantu farewell song. The Hosannah is a rhythmic dance of Kasai, and the Agnus Dei is a typical Bena Luluwa song, such as might be heard around Kananga.

The choreography for the Mass was done by Eleo Pomare.

The Gloria featured in Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964). The Kyrie was used in the Mexican film Un alma pura (1965) and the MGM film The Singing Nun (1966). The Sanctus featured prominently in Lindsay Anderson's 1968 film if starring Malcolm McDowell, with which the Mass was for a time closely identified. It was also used in the telemovie Deadly Voyage (1996), in which it accompanied the closing credits; in Lost and Delirious (2001); and in Never Let Me Go (2010). The Kyrie received regular play at The Loft, an influential underground dance party founded in New York City in 1969. The Loft's host David Mancuso selected music that was soulful, rhythmic, and imparted words of hope, redemption, and pride. Missa Luba in particular appealed to Mancuso's, "affection both for music with an explicit spiritual message and for African percussion." The Clash refer to the recording in the lyrics of "Car Jamming" on their 1982 album Combat Rock. The cover of the Troubadours' album appears briefly in the Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange (1971) as Malcolm McDowell's character, Alex, strolls through a record shop. The Missa Luba was the most successful of many world music Masses created in the 1950s and 1960s. It eclipsed the earlier Messe des Savanes (1956) arranged by Abbé Robert Wedraogho in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and gave rise to several imitations, including the Misa Criolla (1964) arranged by Ariel Ramírez and the Misa Flamenca (1966) arranged by Ricardo Fernández de Latorre and José Torregrosa. In the authoritative music magazine Mojo, the Belgian Congolese record Missa Luba of Les Troubadours du Roi Baudouin is mentioned as one of the ten albums that 'made' the sound of Led Zeppelin.