likembe

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Lingala likembé, from li- + kembé.

Noun

likembe (plural likembes)

1. A musical instrument found in sub-Saharan Africa; a kind of lamellophone.
   • 1946, James Riddell, In the forests of the night, page 204:

     One of the lesser pygmies had a small musical instrument in his lap, a hollowed-out box affair with small strips of metal set across a bar on top which, if I remember right, is called a "Likembe."

   • 1999, Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje, Turn Up the Volume!: A Celebration of African Music, page 44:

     This instrument became interregionally known as the likembe, and it spread like wildfire among porters and employees in the Belgian colonial service throughout the French and the Belgian Congo, thus paralleling the spread of the trade […]

   • 2003, Gary Stewart, Rumba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos‎^[1], page 71:

     A new artist, Antoine Mundanda of Brazzaville, brought his likembe troupe to Ngoma in 1954, recording several songs that seemed to confirm the link between traditional likembe and modern guitar picking.

   • 2010, Theory of African Music, Theory of African Music‎^[2], volume 1, page 385:

     Like elsewhere in central Africa, the likembe in Angola was an instrument of the emerging working class and, as such, it was also inter-ethnic.