With his soul-inflected Tuku style, singer/songwriter/guitarist Oliver Mtukudzi alone rivals Thomas Mapfumo for the mantle of Zimbabwe pop's spiritual father. Mtukudzi recorded his first hits in the late `70s and remains active today. Though it includes elements of Shona and other Zimbabwean traditional music, Mtukudzi's sound also draws heavily on South African township pop and classic R&B. Mtukudzi adores Otis Redding, above all, but his own husky, mellifluous voice sounds closer to Jamaica's Toots Hibbert.

Claiming no overriding stylistic model, Mtukudzi believes in the interrelatedness of all African music, "from Cape to Cairo." Just the same, Oliver's winning personality pervades his sound, rendering the Tuku style instantly recognizable. Mtukudzi always packs in a dance crowd at his frequent shows in Harare's hotel/club scene. His rollicking songs and long-legged dance moves go down well, but Mtukudzi says it's his message, not the beat that sells the songs. Acting as a kind of national conscience, Mtukudzi concentrates on family stories, sensitively exploring the social issues people face in their daily lives, including now problems surrounding AIDS and the premature deaths of adults in a family.

Mtukudzi's 1992 CD Shoko present s a set of classic tuku hits, crisply recorded in a German studio. At the time, he told Afropop that he missed the "rawness" of older productions. "They were more African than this digital thing coming up. We seem to be running away from something." However, since then, he has been recording in a state-of-the-art studio in South Africa, and has produced two polished albums available on Putumayo, Tuku Music (1998) and Paivepo (2000). Self-effacing and down-to-earth, Mtukudzi runs a grocery story in his hometown when he's not working with his band.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre