What does 'kumbaya' in the song Kumbaya, my Lord mean? Kumbaya, my Lord was first recorded by an out-of-work English professor, Robert Winslow Gordon, in 1927. Gordon went on a search for black spirituals and recorded a song Come by Here, My Lord, sung by H. Wylie. The song was sung in Gullah on the islands of South Carolina between Charleston and Beaufort.