"Wanyanya"

This double CD is both a new chapter and a career retrospective for one of Zimbabwe’s most important and innovative roots musicians.  Stella Chiweshe is often marketed as the “queen of the mbira,” but this sells her short.  Chiweshe’s prowess on the Shona hand piano and her unusual story as one of the first women to rise to prominence playing it, are remarkable.  Still, the survey of her new and old work that this great collection allows, reveals that most of her recorded work does not actually involve mbira. 

The first CD, dubbed Trance Hits, is a set of nine new recordings made in Zimbabwe.  Chiweshe says she “really struggled” to make this recording, and given what we know about present life in Zimbabwe, with its 900% inflation rate and frightening political violence, one can only imagine the stories behind that statement.  Most of the songs here are performed with just voices and percussion—shaker, hand claps and the hand-struck ngoma drums.  Some pieces, like “Wanyanya/That’s Too Much” simmer with restless, pent up energy.  Chiweshe’s voice, whether alone or leading a backing chorus, is deep and husky, conveying both moral force and mystic detachment.  She summons tremendous energy on the percussion pieces, even on a piece whose title translates as “Boredom.” 

There may be an uncharacteristic strain of political commentary in titles like “That’s Too Much,” “The Chidren are Crying,” and “Here Comes Poverty Once More.”  We think of Chiweshe as operating in a poetic realm beyond politics, but on the powerful, minor key chant “Mutonga/The Old Lion,” she resorts to ambiguous fighting words: “If you kill me, you will die as well.  I’ll kill you as well.”  Certainly these new songs communicate angst, but also a kind of hope and sanctuary based in spirituality.  The four mbira songs here are all unusual, none of them a simple knockoff of the old mbira classics.  She concludes with a slow, ponderous, richly toned instrumental called “Mazorodze/Relax”—the absence of lyrics perhaps suggesting that peace and relaxation in Zimbabwe now exists only in a realm beyond words. 

CD 2, Classic Hits, reprises thirteen pieces from earlier Chiweshe albums, mostly performed by The Earthquake Band.  Chiweshe says she was tasked to create this group by a spirit medium who told her that her mission was to bring village music to the city.  The Earthquake Band follows the pattern of using traditional and modern instruments together, but unlike Thomas Mapfumo’s band and others that rely on mbira, the rootsy core of Stella’s ensemble sound is usually two or three, mallet-struck marimbas.  Marimbas give the Earthquake Band a more lithe and racing sound, evident on the pumping hunters’ tune “Machena” or “Mikono,” about a bull or strong man.  Both are prime examples of the Earthquake Band’s crisp, characteristic snap. 

There is more exuberance and celebration on the older songs, from the classic “Chachimurenga,” created in the 1980s with help from British musicians of the group 3 Mustaphas 3, to the cranking “Huya Uzoona/Come and See,” a marimba-driven romp filled out with feathery, electric guitar strumming.  “Mese Maikwana/An Invitation to Dance” borders on a Congolese soukous groove, and “Kudara Kwangu/When I Was a Little Girl” reprises a song Chiweshe sang as a child, but with a kind of ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll feeling.  Again, mbira songs are the exception in this selection, but when they do come, they always offer surprises, whether the unusual percussion emphasis of “Chapfudzapasi/Music Earthquake” or the clapping and ngoma the propels the set’s rich-toned mbira closer, “Vana Vako Vopera/Africa, Your Children are Dying and Suffering” 

This release now stands as the indispensable Stella Chiweshe title.  It reveals the humanity, creativity, and mystical power of a true Zimbabwean original.  Chiweshe is not simply queen of the mbira, she is the queen of all that country’s amazing roots musicians. 

Contributed by: Banning Eyre for www.afropop.org