Tucked between Congo, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania, the landlocked nation of Zambia spans a broad cross section of southern and central African reality. In the south, Tonga and Shona people share cultural affinities with people across the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe. In the northern Copperbelt, and still further north in Luapula Province, are much closer to Congolese cultural spheres. In all, Zambia has over 70 distinct ethnic groups, although the Bemba speakers in the north and Nyanja speakers of the east are dominant.

Zambia's cultural diversity may have something to do with its relatively low profile in the pantheons of "world music" and Afropop. As one music producer there put it, Zambians "adapt and adopt" more than they innovate. Over the past century, rumba, country and western, South African jazz, and more recently reggae, R&B and rap have all exerted decisive influence in Zambian music, and inspired local variants. And yet, there is no style of modern music one hears and right away thinks: Zambia! That's not to say the country is not home to amazing musical talent. From its vocal, percussion, xylophone, mbira (thumb piano) and other traditions, to its current wave of popular and well produced contemporary singers, Zambia has much to offer, and much that has been overlooked in writings about and compilations of African music.

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b>Political History

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span style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">David Livinstone's 1851 exploration of the Zambezi Valley made him the first white man to see the wonder of Victoria Falls, and inspired much interest in the region back in England. The territory we now know as Zambia was first established as Northern Rhodesia in 1911. Northern Rhodesia was an extension of Cecil Rhodes's exploitative mining, farming and settlement empire in southern Africa, but it never drew the numbers of settlers or the intensity of colonial rule seen in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Most settlers came to Northern Rhodesia after World War I, but even by 1924, the white population was just 4000.

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span style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">For a time, the two Rhodesias were joined in a federation, but independence came to Zambia relatively peacefully in 1964, whereas Zimbabwe would fight a bloody war throughout the 70s to win its freedom. Missionaries and labor union leaders steered Zambia's path to early independence. The country's first president, Kenneth Kaunda, consolidated power for his United National Independence Party (UNIP) and ruled with an increasingly firm hand until 1991, when at last, something resembling multi party elections took place.

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span style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Meanwhile, the bottom had fallen out of the copper market, the country's economic lifeline, and times were hard. Under presidents Frederick Chiluba (1991-2001) and Patrick Mwanawasa (2001-present), Zambia has struggled to find new economic footing. Meanwhile, it has confronted the region's devastating scourge of HIV-AIDS with laudable success. A combination of aggressive public education and drug treatment has dramatically reduced infection rates and deaths. During this same period, the music industry has experienced something of a renaissance.

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b>Zambia's Music

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span style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Naturally, Zambia's ethnically rich population preserves a vast array of musical traditions, probably best documented by the late, South African musicologist Hugh Tracey. Michael Baird, a Zambian born Brit, has edited Tracey's recordings into a 21-CD series. Baird has also returned to Zambia to record Tonga music in the southern province (Batonga Across the Waters), as well as little known, rural bands there (Zambia Roadside). Modern Zambian music got a big head start in the camps of copper miners near the border with Congo's Katanga province. The so-called "copperbelt guitarists" conveyed Congolese fingerstyle guitar, with its American country music overtones, into local Zambian languages and rhythmic idioms. Some of this music was recorded commercially when Teal Records set up a pressing plant in Ndola, in the heart of the Zambian copperbelt.

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span style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The rock 'n roll era transformed Zambia, and urban bands became skilled at imitating and adapting rock idioms to create a local genre people called Zamrock. During the 1980s, Zambia saw a bloom of locally created, electric-guitar driven roots pop bands. This music is often lumped together under the heading kalindula. In fact, kalindula is a particular ethnic rhythm from Luapula province, and just one of the traditions that was urbanized and electrified during this rich period. Unfortunately, the kalindula era was short. Teal closed its plant around 1990, frightened off by Zambia's flagging economy and the debilitating rise of cassette piracy--still a huge problem in the country. Two international releases compiled by Michael Baird, Zambush, Vol 1 and Vol 2, provide an excellent short tour of Zambian pop music just before and throughout the kalindula period.

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span style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The 1990s were slow indeed in Zambia's music sector. Foreign music from Congo, South Africa, and of course, Jamaica and the United States took over the airwaves. During this period, a young Zambian named Chisha Folotiya returned from schooling in the UK and became a DJ in Lusaka. Lamenting the lack of local sounds on the radio, Folotiya decided to start a local record company for a new time. The result was Mondo Music, which emerged in 1999, and quickly produced successful acts like singing stars JK and Danny, the rappers of Black Muntu, and the "Zam-raga" singer Daddy Zemus. Most of Mondo Music's output owes more to those foreign genres than to kalindula or copperbelt guitar, let alone older traditions. But without interference from the state, local artists have reconquered the Zambian airwaves, and have earned a number of nominations and awards at the KORA Music Awards in South Africa.

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span style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Folotiya says, "Zambian music has never had that much of the strong personality. It's always been more adaptive. It's the kind of thing whereby if it lived in America, it would take an American accent. If it lived in Australia, it would take an Australian accent. So we are waiting for the day when the music does get to have its own personality, and people will be able to hear two bars of the song and say, 'Oh, I know where that's from. That must be from Zambia.' It hasn't happened yet." Perhaps not , but it may be in the works.  In a sure sign that Zambian music is on the move, Mondo Music now faces competition from a number of upstart record labels. The music may borrow beats and production aesthetics, but the singers are often excellent, and they sing in local languages about local concerns. Considering where things were a decade ago, this is remarkable progress. The golden days of Zambian music may yet lay ahead.

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span style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">[8/15/2006]

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Contributed by: Banning Eyre