ZHAKATA'S GOSPEL SOMERSAULT

Leonard Zhakata (Photo Credit: The Herald)

Zora maestro Leonard Zhakata’s latest offering indicates a transition from liberation theology to prosperity gospel.

A closer listen to two of Zhakata’s most popular tracks Mugove and Dhonza Makomborero point to this theological somersault.

First though, a cursory rating of the tracks.

The songs have enjoyed an even share of fanfare.

Dhonza Makomborero off the latest album Zvangu Zvaita was voted the Cocacola Radio Zimbabwe Song of the Year for 2014.

Dollar Boy and Chapter Yerudo off the same album took the second and seventh position respectively.

The honour two months after Zhakata’s landed the Zimbabwe Music Awards (Zima) 2014 Song of the Year for Dhonza Makomborero and the Album of the Year for Zvangu Zvaita.

Mugove was a second national anthem back in the day and remains one of the country’s most cherished classics.Themassive hit off Maruva Enyika dominated the Radio 2 chart for 1994.

And now to the theology of Zhakata’s two offerings.

The impression is that the songs either starkly contrast or are two halves of the same jigsaw puzzle.

The older song springs out of a poor man’s anguish and invokes God’s intervention against poverty, inequality and injustice.

The latter, to the polar extreme, is a love letter to God from a persona basking in the overflow of both spiritual and material blessings – a celebration, even, of the answer to “Mugove,” his 1994 prayer.

Medley City looks at Zhakata’s coming of age in light of the complementary messages of the two songs and their corresponding spiritual settings.

While Zhakata maintains that he has always been a Christian who sang gospel music which people circumscribed as social commentary, Zvangu Zvaita is his first overtly gospel album.

The talented composer who was at the top of his game during the nineties had an obscure patch and, before his recent comeback, had last romped to the pole position in 1999 with Pakuyambuka.

Since then he has appeared in the media, more often for the perceived political undertones of his music – an interpretation he denies – than for the reception of his music, though he has maintained devoted fanbase.

The Zora king’s turning point was possibly his chemistry with Prophet Makandiwa’s UFIC where the man of God prophesied that God has called Zhakata to be a “bishop.”

The musician was marked out for pastoral grooming, a development which made him an object of media speculation and popular attention.

Late 2013, a year after the prophecy, he made decisive strides out of the hinterland where his music was eliciting lukewarm reception with the biblically-themed Zvangu Zvaita.

Although Zhakata’s rebound was not an all-out gospel offering as had been anticipated, the album is jam-packed with gospel messages and all the featured songs are allusive to and consistent with the Bible.

In fact each song, be it about prosperity, love or fidelity, locates a place for God in each social phenomenon.

Dhonza Makomborero, the title track, has stood out as the crowds’ favourite and spent much of last year on the pole position on Radio Zimbabwe and National FM charts.

The song is staking its claim among Zhakata’s all-time hits.

Unlike equally hyped artist conversions which failed to last the distance, whatever Prophet Makandiwa told Zhakata does not look like seed on the dry ground or among thorns if the bishop-in-waiting’s lyrical maturation is anything to go by.

With Dhonza Makomborero, Zhakata knocks the door for a seat among seasoned psalmists, owing to its infectious and affectionate to God.

Before Zhakata had set his eyes on the pulpit, if that is the case, he also had occasional moments of inspiration whereby he intimately invoked the heavens for intervention.

This phase, however, cannot be properly classified as gospel, due to the artist’s ambiguous approach to spiritual questions back then.

There are instances where he was at home invoking ancestors’ help as in Shungu Dzemoyo off Maruva Enyika and questioning the moral certitude of Christianity as in Chitupe off Ngingaita Sei.

However, there was a steady outpour of spiritually themed messages most of which dovetail with what is called the liberation theology, that is, a Christian outlook which confronts the problems of poverty and injustice. These include Vana Vagwadama and Segwayana.

There were also intimately spiritual offerings, notably Gomba Remarara, Kundiso, Tarisiro, but then almost every artist has such moments and much of these are not gospel in the sense of being Christ-centred.

One was recently reworked by popular gospel artist Sabastian Magacha, collaborating with Zhakata, into a slow-paced rendition entitled Kwekuturira as part of his African Joy project.

Mugove is an epitome of the pro-poor angle assumed by Zhakata’s music back in the day. 20 years on, Pastor Zhakata, a previous AFM and Upper Room Fellowship congregant drops the stellar, Dhonza Makomborero, not so much a contrast but an apparent thematic continuation of Mugove.

In Mugove, the liberation theologian pleads “If it were possible, Lord, you would convene a session with your angels and blow down blessings for us the poor.”

Bitterly out of favour with fortune, the persona pleads: “If you have anything in store for me, Father, I request for my portion while I am still alive, Lord; see I am being worn out like a cloth by the rich while I have nothing of my own.”

Dhonza Makomborero comes in as an affirmation of this prayer. Zhakata, as it were, celebrates with the Psalmist, “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.”

“Things have worked right for me, I used to cry for the face of God; I used to cry for mercy. Now the sacred face has lighted up my countenance, the sacred hand is stretched out to me, O my heart accept with thanksgiving,” Zhakata celebrates.

It’s nothing short of a somersault from the activist for whom complaining was a trademark to a grateful believer.

Possibly, the explanation is that poverty is a permanent condition this side of eternity but from those who seek and ask and knock, God will not hide his face forever.

Liberation theology attempts to fix the world but the disappointments of history points to an inherently flawed civilisation. Prosperity gospel speaks of life enhancement one individual at a time. Possibly, this is Zhakata’s somersault.

Could this not be the reason why, Job, in the the Bible’s oldest epic, anticipates: “When men are cast down, you shall say there is lifting up?”

It is not given us to change the world this side of eternity but that does not mean we defer our all our hopes to eternity. To those who believe, blessings are plenty and to spare in this life and in the life to come.

The tracks Ishe Anesu, Rutendo Panashe, Dofo Pahunhu and Wakarimira Vamwe make up the rest of the well-received album.