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A New Look, but the Same Sound and Spirit for the Lion of Zimbabwe
July 21, 2004
Text by Banning Eyre. Photos by Banning Eyre and Sean Barlow.
Thomas Mapfumo -- the Lion of Zimbabwe, the Chimurenga Guru, "Mukanya" or "Gandanga" to loving fans back home--has long been identified with his asymmetrical, ropey dreadlocks, ritually unleashed from beneath a fedora or a floppy hat during his shows to fly out in all directions as he sings and prowls the stage. Few now remember that all during the '60s, when Mapfumo was a rock 'n' roll singer, and the '70s, when he composed his career-making revolutionary pop songs, he wore short hair. Recently, after two-plus decades of dreadlocked glory, Mapfumo got out the razor. When I met him in Boston on July 8 to accompany him on a ten-day East Coast tour with his band the Blacks Unlimited, Mapfumo told me he'd been thinking about dropping the dreads for a long time. Like Zimbabwe itself, he was ready for a change. The band's trumpeter, Brooks Barnett, reported that it was watching a performance video of a recent concert in London that did the trick. Mapfumo looked at his receding hairline and ever more trailing dreads and said, "Enough." A week later, in Austria, the deed was done. Looking liberated, he now smiles and tells those who ask, "We are feeling a lot of breezes now."
The winds of change may be blowing over Mapfumo's newly coifed pate, and even within his venerable band, but sadly, the same cannot be said of Zimbabwe. As the country's failed leaders dig in their heels ever more stubbornly, as violence continues to rise, and living standards to sink, pressure keeps building, and there is no relief in sight. The first night I spoke with Mapfumo this summer, he told me that people in Zimbabwe are now talking about civil war. Mugabe's government has made change through the political process impossible. The opposition MDC party is effectively hamstrung and all but silenced, and as Mapfumo sees it, no other force can now rise to take its place. Many now see nowhere else to turn but armed struggle, a situation sadly reminiscent of the one that existed thirty years ago in Rhodesia. Mapfumo clearly took no joy in making this observation, but there was no mistaking his sense that a truly horrific showdown seems to be in the works.
Aside from the national tragedy for Zimbabwe's people, the troubles there have taken a toll on Mapfumo's business. Start with the fact that Zimbabwe's currency is virtually worthless now, drastically devaluing all his assets and earnings back home. He was recently forced to sell his beloved soccer team, the Sporting Lions. The team began in the early 90s with a lineup of eager young men from the Mbare ghetto, and rose to the premier leagues during the years Mapfumo owned the franchise. "I loved that team," he told me with genuine sadness in Boston. "And I will continue to support them. It is my dream to one day own a soccer team again." Add to this the fact that what began five years ago as casual censorship of Mapfumo's songs on state controlled radio has now blossomed into a full-scale ban on his new songs, many of which cast a cold, hard eye on Zimbabwe's present corruption, violence, and economic failure. Zimbabweans have not been able to hear Mapfumo's last three albums on the airwaves. It's a ground rule of music business anywhere: no radio play hurts business. Mapfumo says this is censorship as bad as or even worse than what he experienced under the Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith in the late 1970s.
Mapfumo moved his family to Eugene, Oregon, in 2000, and since then he's been going home to Zimbabwe to play shows each December/January. This year, he stayed in Harare into April, recording and performing despite the censorship, threats, and deteriorating conditions. Some band members report that Zimbabweans who might otherwise come out to Mapfumo shows sometimes stay home, afraid of being singled out for beatings by the many rogue elements roaming the streets, intent on intimidating opposition to the government. "Those guns can come out at any time," one musician told me.
The band played one recent show in Chinoyi, a hotbed of support for Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. When Mapfumo played songs from the 1970's liberation war years, the comrades danced and smiled. But when he came to newer material, focusing on the hardships Zimbabweans face now, they became unhappy. Agents of the feared CIO (Central Intelligence Organization) approached Blacks Unlimited doormen and warned them that if Mapfumo kept on singing these songs, people in the audience, and even the band, would be beaten. "It was very tense," recalled the band's Zimbabwean manager. On hearing of these warnings, Mapfumo played one last song and ended the show early, not interested in being threatened.
Then there was the problem of recording his new album. First the band had trouble booking time at Shed Studio, and there were strong suggestions that the Ministry of Information was meddling to try and prevent the Blacks Unlimited from recording. Then when the work was nearly done, the studio's hard drive was mysteriously erased. The band recorded the entire album again, but soon after they left Zimbabwe in April, the music reportedly went missing again. Mapfumo says this was a false report and that the tracks are being sent to the U.S. to be completed here. But the fact remains, Mapfumo's new music is not being heard in Zimbabwe, and this is the longest time he has gone without releasing a new album since about 1990. Mapfumo seems to take all this amazingly in stride. "This is going to be one of our best albums," he assured me.
"That guy is very brave," said one musician, new to the band, of Mapfumo. "He has no fear. Not very many people would have the courage to say the things he has been saying." No surprise that the state controlled press has been tough on Mapfumo. They once hailed him as a hero, but now revel in any hint of his troubles. No sooner did word of the singer's new look hit town in Harare, than rumors began to spread about fatal illness, chemo-therapy, etc. You know the drill. All imaginings. The man is fit and strong, and showing no signs of backing away from what is clearly a deep moral cause: to shine an unflagging light on the worsening plight of ordinary Zimbabweans.
Fast forward to Mapfumo's arrival in Boston. You might imagine that the singer would be dispirited by these events, or that he would trim back the size of his band to save money. Think again. Not only were his spirits high, and his creative juices flowing--Mapfumo never stops composing and rehearsing new songs--but he was touring the biggest band he's had in the U.S. in years. The changes start with the sonic and spiritual core of the band, the sacred, iron-pronged mbira. At its height in the late 90s, the Blacks Unlimited had three mbira players, but in the band's recent American incarnation, just one player, Chaka Mhembere has been holding the fort. Now Bezil Makombe--probably the most gifted mbira player ever to play in this band--has returned, restoring a great richness to the sound.
The Blacks Unlimited stage show has long featured two or three singing, dancing women, incorporating another element of Shona folklore into the band's decidedly modern sound. Again, recent American shows have seen only one or even no women, but now there are two--Mavis Mapfumo and Naomi Mkwavira--and they are excellent. Since joining the band in 2001, Brooks Barnett of Eugene, Oregon, has learned much of the Blacks Unlimted's vast and growing repertoire for brass section. This is quite an achievement when you consider the fact that all the brass parts come from Mapfumo's head, and he frequently changes them, expecting his players to keep up with him at all times. Barnett, a young, talented jazz musician, has now trained a number of other players to accompany him in the Blacks Unlimited, filling out the section. On this tour, he was joined by Stephan Martin of Germany. Barnett has also learned some Shona, and when he sings along on the refrains and dances with Martin and the rest of the front line, Zimbabweans in the audience go crazy.
Mapfumo also brought two new musicians from Zimbabwe this year. Gilbert Zvamaida has played guitar in a popular Zimbabwe outfit called the Zig Zag Band since 1981. The band backed Oliver Mtukudzi from 1986-88. When the Black Unlimited's young guitarist, Zivai Guveya, left the band to pursue a career with other Zimbabwean musicians in London, Mapfumo recruited Zvamaida. Zvamaida had never played chimurenga music before he was asked to lay down some tracks for Toi Toi in 2002. He viewed it as a challenge. Now, after seven months in the band, he's doing remarkably well, mastering the trademark lines contributed to the band's repertoire by late greats like Jonah Sithole, Joshua Dube, Ashton "Sugar" Chiweshe, and Ephraim Karimaura, and creating new parts of his own as new songs continue to emerge and evolve.
A young bass player named Tsepo Makhaza also left the band recently, along with Guveya, but rather than replace him, Mapfumo moved longtime Blacks Unlimited musician Chris Muchabaiwa from drums to bass, and brought in a drummer with a jazz and funk background, Njwaki "Gibson" Nyoni. Over the course seven years in the Blacks Unlimited, Muchabaiwa started out on guitar, moved to bass, then to drums, and now back to bass, always with a smile and solid musicianship. As for Nyoni, he confesses that he never took an interest in mbira music before. "If you come to my house and look at my music collection," he told me, "you will not find one mbira recording." Nyoni says this almost proudly, and it is surprising, considering that he now fills the demanding roll of Blacks Unlimited drummer with ease and confidence. On the other hand, it's not so surprising. All the way back to his beginnings as a bandleader in the early 1970s, Mapfumo has shown a consistent knack for recruiting great musicians.
Along with Chaka Mhembere on mbira, and Lancelot Mapfumo on congas and keyboard, that brings the current lineup to eleven, and from the moment the band went on stage for their first show at Johnny D's in Sommerville (Boston), it was clear that the full Blacks Unlimited sound is intact, despite all the pressures and changes. Among the distinguished guests, Geoffrey Nyarota, former editor of the now banned daily newspaper, The Daily News, attended the show. Now at Harvard, Nyarota showed up early, visited with Mapfumo backstage, and stayed through both sets, enjoying a taste of home he could get no other way. Big crowds came out to see the band in Boston (July 10), at New Yorks' Central Park Summerstage (July 11), also at the Kola Note in Montreal (July 14), and for two shows at the Ottawa Blues Festival (July 16, 17). The Toronto Blues Festival was abruptly cancelled--the band got word only in Montreal--so they picked up a booking at Toronto's Bamboo Club (July 18). Attendance was lower there, but only because of the last-minute shuffle.
I traveled with the band for all but the last of these shows, helping out with the driving, conducting interviews for my future book on Mapfumo and the band, and sitting in on acoustic guitar for a few songs in each show. Two impressions linger strongly about the music itself. First is the way the essential strength and character of the band's sound persists despite all the changes. Whether it's a rollicking "jit" number with fluid vocal interplay, idiosyncratic brass section parts, and the band's unique dance shuffle, or a deep mbira song reaching back to the sacred feeling of a traditional Shona bira ceremony, these musicians--newcomers and non-Zimbabwean alike--still deliver the full force Blacks Unlimited experience, and it gets the audience every time.
The second impression has to do the band's amazing fluidity of repertoire. No two sets I saw were the same. Mapfumo does not believe in set lists. He calls the songs from the stage, as he feels it. Some shows dug back to the distant past with songs like "Pfumvu Paruzeva (Trouble in the Rural Areas)" one of the original '70s singles, or "Zimbabwe-Mozambique," a remarkable 1987 evocation of the friendship between these neighboring countries, that combines elements of reggae, jit, African jazz, and traditional Mozambiquan music, played on mbiras. A few songs from the band's terrific recent release Toi Toi (Anonymous Records) came up often, particularly "Vechidiki," a classic R&B-tinged warning to youngsters not to become tools of corrupt politicians. One show included the transcendently beautiful "Pasi Inhaka," a philosophical reflection on the transience of all things. Another included "Komborera," a prayer-like piece based on a Malian traditional song played on guitar by yours truly, and adapted for mbiras by the Blacks Unlimited.
There were also lots of new songs, many from the embattled, yet-unreleased album begun at Shed Studios in Harare this past winter. Most of the shows began with "Marimuka," a soulful, tender piece from Mapfumo's 2000 collaboration with cutting edge jazz man Wadada Leo Smith, Dreams and Secrets (Anonymous Records). And all the shows included at least three extended mbira jams, typically "Pidigori," "Chisi," "Mukadzi Wemukoma," and "Dande." In short, the shows were rich, varied, containing something for everyone, and they never failed to leave the audience in the grip of a deeply spiritual buzz.
Mapfumo now heads back to Eugene, where he faces dilemmas. Will he find a new house there and once again base the band in Oregon? Or will he take them home again for a prolonged stay in Harare? We don't know. But we do know about the following U.S. dates in coming months. Given the band's powerful recent performances, and all the uncertainties they face, no chance to see this act live should be missed.
Afropop Exclusive: Find Thomas Mapfumo music downloads in the Afropop Shop
Watch this site for a fuller list of Thomas Mapfumo's late-summer and fall U.S. shows as they become available.
Thomas Mapfumo: Summer/Fall 2004
8/29/04, Los Angeles, CA: Hollywood Bowl
9/2/04, Spokane, WA: Restaurant Fair at Riverfront Park
9/4/04, Seattle, WA: Bumbershoot Festival
10/15/04 Charlottesville, VA: UVA Charlottesville
10/16/04 Blackmountain, NC: Lake Eden Arts Festival
While you're waiting, here are more images from the July, 2004, east coast tour of Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited.
Contributed by: Banning Eyre and Sean Barlow
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