“Dali Ngiyakuthanda bati ha ha ha” Ha Ha Ha” was a hit song in the ’50s by George Sibanda, highlife pioneer from Zimbabwe, who is widely agreed to be the first sub-Saharan African music star. Sibanda was from the city of Bulawayo in then-thriving British-run Rhodesia. His happy, melodic acoustic guitar music became all the rage, especially in far-flung countries like Kenya, where the masses sang along with his songs even though they didn’t understand the lyrics. Sibanda became rich and famous but found himself overwhelmed. He died of alcohol poisoning some time in the late ’50s.
Tag Archives | Zimbabwe
Stella Chiweshe and Masters of the Mbira
Let’s meet Stella Chiweshe, a master of the mbira….
Earlier this week we enjoyed the music of Thomas Mapfumo, one of the most beloved musicians in the history of Zimbabwe. Mapfumo and other artists such Stella Chiweshe pioneered Chimurenga music, which has become the voice of a proud Zimbabwean people — “chimurenga” is the Shona word for “revolutionary struggle.” Chimurenga features the mbira, an ancient Shona thumb piano, and is known to follow mbira music’s 12 beat polyrhythms, breaking the 12 beats into either four measures of three beats each or three measures of four beats each.
Hallelujah! It’s the Chicken Run Band
One of the undisputed musical giants of Zimbabwe is Thomas Mapfumo.
Mapfumo came to musical prominence as part of Hallelujah Chicken Run Band which formed in the darkest days of Rhodesian colonialism when the Mangura Copper Mine hired musicians including Mapfumo, some of whom worked as chicken-tenders, to entertain its weary miners. Watch Mapfumo perform “Moyo Wangu.” Listen to the Chicken Run Band’s “Ndiyani Angandiudze” on YouTube.
Zimbabwe: a Hyper-Inflated Sense of Awesome
For this week’s online class we travel south in Africa to Zimbabwe, a country whose recent history is full of high highs, such as that of gaining independence, and low lows, such as unfathomable hyper-inflation, all set to the bounding musical soundtrack of an ancient thumb piano, a man nicknamed Tuku and some guys who used to tend chickens. Let’s go.
Singing Hope with Shosholoza
South African diamond and gold miners sang to keep rhythm with their tedious work, to communicate through stomps and clapping code and ease their struggles through terrible times. In this video we hear “Shosoloza,” a South African/Zimbabwean mine work song. The word “Shosoloza” means “hope” in the Zimbabwean language of Ndebele. (More about Shosoloza.)
To a Thousand More Years of Mbira
We end this week’s Zimbabwean musical adventure with one of the world’s sweetest instruments — the melodic “thumb piano” known as the mbira.The mbira is an African instrument composed of metal tines of varying lengths attached to a small wooden board; hold it in your hands, pluck the tines and make beautiful music. The “thumb piano” has existed in one form or another all over southern Africa for more than thousand years–first with bamboo tines, then eventually with metal–and over time dozens of slight variations have developed, resulting in the existence of mbira-like instruments all over the continent: the akogo (Uganda), the gyilgo (Ghana), the ikembe (Rwanda and Burundi), the kadongo (Uganda), the karimba (Zimbabwe), the likembe (Congo), the prempremsua (Ghana), the sanza (Congo) and many more.
Clap Along to the Zimabwean Mende
Though most music accompanying Shona dance features three distinct instruments – ngoma drums, the mbira and the marimba — in our classes we do our best to dance the Mbende Jerusarema.
The Jerusarema is a dance from the Shona of Zimbabwe, usually performed with the accompaniment of a solo drummer or clapping hands, that became significant as a statement of cultural independence as Zimbabwe fought for freedom from the British.
Our favorite Zimbabwean musician — TUKU!
Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi, was one of Zimbabwe’s most beloved musicians — and, I admit, my favorite. Tuku rightly became an international favorite for his sweet melodies and his socially conscious lyrics. While he was not as critical of long long LONG-ruling leader Robert Mugabe as musicians from Zimbabwe such as Thomas Mapfumo, Mtukudzi’s 2000 song, “Wasakara,” which means “You Are Worn Out,” did feature the lyrics, directed at the aging autocrat, “Admit you have gotten old, Admit you are worn out.” See Tuku perform at NPR’s “Tiny Desk.”
