Nicolas Kasanda wa Mikalay (7 July 1939 – 22 September 1985), popularly known as Docteur Nico, was a guitarist, composer and one of the pioneers of soukous music. He was born in Mikalayi in the Belgian Congo. At the age of 14, Kasanda started playing with the seminal group Grand Kalle et l'African Jazz, led by Joseph "Grand Kalle" Kabaselle. He became an influential guitarist (Jimi Hendrix visited him while on tour in Paris), and the originator of the ubiquitous Congolese finger-picked guitar style, acquiring the nickname "Dr. Nico".

He withdrew from the music scene in the mid 1970s following the collapse of his Belgian record label, and made a few final recordings in Togo, not long before he died in a hospital in Brussels, Belgium in 1985.
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