The band that pioneered chimurenga music came into being when singer Thomas Mapfumo and singer/guitarist Jonah Sithole merged their respective bands into one. Mapfumo and Sithole had worked together before. They were talented musicians with a keen interest in bringing traditional elements into pop music. They were also somewhat competitive, so when Mapfumo's Acid Band and Sithole's group The Storm came together, they decided they needed a new name, The Blacks Unlimited. Ultimately, it would be Mapfumo's band, as Sithole left, played in other bands, returned, left again, formed his own band, and finally returned to the band for the final years of his life. In both pre-independence Rhodesia and post-independence Zimbabwe, life for dance bands was not easy. The challenges and strains would tear many bands to pieces after a few months, or a few album releases. So among the Blacks Unlimited's claims to fame is simply the fact that they have lasted so long, despite all sorts of hardship.

The band also developed the vast repertoire of songs and styles that goes under the name "chimurenga music." The name refers to the guerilla fighters of the 1970s. Both with the Acid Band and the Blacks Unlimited, Mapfumo wrote songs that gave the fighters courage and steeled their sense of purpose. The core of the band's early sound was a pop band rendering of the Shona people's sacred mbira music. The Zezuru mbira, sometimes called mbira dza vadzimu (mbira of the spirits), is a 22-pronged, wood and iron lamellophone. It is used in ceremonies to summon the spirits of dead ancestors so that they can guide the living. As such, the mbira is a power symbol of ancient Africa, and by putting its music on electric guitars, bass, and trap drums, the Blacks Unlimited made a strong statement even without Mapfumo's needling lyrics. Rhodesian education had tried to instill shame in traditions such as mbira. Chimurenga music counseled a rejection of that attitude.

First and foremost, though, the band was a hit machine. Through the final years of the war, into the hopeful early days of independence, and up to the present climate of disillusionment with the government of Robert Mugabe, Mapfumo's songs have captured the mood of the moment and struck a deep chord with the public. The band has evolved dramatically over those years. Mapfumo always wanted a big band with guitars, percussion, a horn section, and female singer/dancers. In the 1980s, he began using keyboard, feeling that it came closer to the tone of mbira than did an electric guitar. But soon, the band began using actual mbiras, first one, then two, and ultimately three.

Jonah Sithole, Joshua Dube, Leonard "Pickett" Chiyangwa, and James Chimombe were the first guitarists. Later on, Ephraim Karimaura and Ashton "Sugar" Chiweshe and others also played guitar. Many of these guitarists have unfortunately died, but their work lives on in the Blacks Unlimited's large catalogue of recordings. Sithole, Dube, Chiyangwa and Karimaura were particularly good at evoking mbira music on guitar, although their experience with rumba (Congo music), South African township pop, and even American sounds were also key. For Mapfumo, raised on Shona tradition and rock `n' roll, wanted to put it all together, and his songwriting has ventured into new realms on virtually every one of his many records.

When the Blacks Unlimited began using real mbiras in the 1980s, Chartwell Dutiro played an important role in resolving basic tuning and arranging issues. From 1986 until his departure in 1993, Durito collaborated in a major reworking of the Blacks Unlimited sound. The sound became fuller, richer, and centered around the mbiras, even when playing non-mbira music. Dutiro played saxophone as well, and in his time the sound would shift between horn section and mbira section pieces. After Dutiro left, brothers Bezil and Ngoni Makombe took the lead in organizing the mbira section. Just 17 when he first joined the band, Bezil was especially talented, both as a player and writer. Like Dutiro and many of the guitarists, the Makombe brothers contributed music that evolved into legendary Blacks Unlimited songs.

After 1993, with the horn section and the mbira section sharing no members, mbiras began to play on virtually all the songs. At this point, the mbira no longer shaped the Blacks Unlimted sound; the Blacks Unlimited were now extending the range and repertoire of the mbira. In the fall of 2000, Thomas Mapfumo moved his family to Eugene, Oregon, to avoid political chaos in Zimbabwe. But within a few months, he returned and began performing with the band once again, opening a new chapter in the story of one of Africa's most durable and unique pop bands.