MANKATO — Even though he has made recordings, booked performances and gotten grants for his work, Nyttu Chongo does not consider himself a musician.
To him, he is much more of a conduit, a connection between us and our ancestors. In a way, then, he is a witness to his own storytelling.
In creating music, he is fulfilling his family’s expectation of him being a shaman, someone who directs spirits into the physical world for the purpose of healing.
“I was supposed to start being a shaman when I was 10 years old,” he said from his home in Fridley, where he had just brought his children home. “But my mom, she said, ‘No, he’s too young to do this. Let him go to school and when (he’s done with) school, he can become a shaman.’”
He grew up in the Gaza Province of Mozambique. Unlike in the U.S. where kids get toys to play with, he was given an animal as a way to learn responsibility. It was then that he began to turn things around him into musical instruments.
Eventually, as he began exploring with more traditional instruments, he was able to get in touch with his true purpose.
“For me, playing it, music, is kind of the exorcising, like healing people without touching them, without talking to them.”
Chongo will bring his form of music making to Mankato Saturday as the first performer in the second season of Live at the Carnegie. The series is where musician and initiator Liz Draper exposes local people to music they wouldn’t hear otherwise.
While all of the musicians so far have been performers who have crossed Draper’s path personally, Chongo is a bit of a musical stranger to her. But that’s not to say others haven’t recognized and rewarded his musicianship.
In 2024 he received a Knight Foundation grant that supported a performance of his original works in “Phulani” at the Ordway Concert Hall. In 2024 and 2025, he received Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individual funds to support his Ancestral Connections project. And, among others, in 2022 he was a Global Music Initiative Artist in Residence Fellow at MacPhail Center.
Another way he distinguishes himself from more traditional musicians is how he creates music.
“All of my music comes through sleeping,” he said, whether it be in a visit from a child, woman or someone else. “I don’t know how to read music, like in the context of the Western side. But I play by ear, and I dream of the music and doing the song. I practice until it becomes a song.”
Draper said Chongo reached out to the Carnegie Art Center after last year’s season was booked. Although it was too late for last year, she researched him.
“He has quite the resume,” she said. “And I like what I heard. So I was like, we’re giving it a shot. I’m actually honored that he is going to make the trip down … it’s kind of a ways for him.”
As was the case last year, Draper has funding from a variety of state and local sources; while providing the events free at attendees, she does take donations to the artists and Carnegie. She believes Chongo is their inaugural first-generation African artist.
“I really liked what I heard online and (he) played at some very reputable venues. And I loved the different instruments that he had talked about or mentioned,” she said.
Earlier on Saturday, Draper is one of the featured artists in the Women of Kato Festival at NaKato Bar & Grill and appreciates organizers’ willingness to adjust their events to so she could be at Chongo’s performance.
The Carnegie series has events scheduled through December, and Draper plans to extend them into next year.
“I really, really, really, really hope that people come out. If they’ve been they know what they’re getting into. If they haven’t, (I hope they) will take a chance and see why people do come out,” she said.