Tag: Music
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Alick Macheso is the Last of the Last – He Could Use More Ambition
Click or not: Alick Macheso is the Last of the Last – He Could Use More AmbitionLeader of the People’s Band, Alick Macheso, is the humble hero of the workingman and the Harare scene’s most obvious father figure after the death of Oliver Mtukudzi. With more aggression than retrospection, he can take Sungura to new frontiers. …
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The Njerama Files – Interview with Paradzai Mesi (Part 1)
Click or not: The Njerama Files – Interview with Paradzai Mesi (Part 1)Njerama Boys recorded 11 albums between 2000 and 2019. Their legacy rests on a prolific peak decade, boasting no less than five pure classics between 2002 and 2008. Onai Mushava (OM) recently rang the king of bohemians, Paradzai Mesi (PM) for his side of one of the truly complex stories of second-generation sungura. …
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INTERVIEW| Musaemura Zimunya and Marshall Munhumumwe – When Blood Is Thick as Ink
Click or not: INTERVIEW| Musaemura Zimunya and Marshall Munhumumwe – When Blood Is Thick as InkA year after Munhumumwe’s “Makorokoto” won him Radio 2’s first independence-era number one song, his cousin Zimunya published “And Now the Poets Speak”, co-edited with Mudereri Kadhani, and set the tone for new Zimbabwean poetry. Few years later, he had written well enough to be considered Zimbabwe’s foremost poet. What did it mean for Zimunya… …
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Is Tocky Vibes the Next Tuku?
Click or not: Is Tocky Vibes the Next Tuku?As if it is not mathemagical enough working out how Tuku did 66 albums in 42 years – a yearly album for each of his 66 years on earth – Tocky casually dropped four projects in 2019 alone. At a conservative rate of three albums per year, Mr Vibes will have recorded 100 albums by… …
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The Solo Years of Biggie Tembo
Click or not: The Solo Years of Biggie TemboThe Solo Years of Biggie Tembo Out of Africa is the more solid artwork, spawning memorable hits like the poetically cryptic “Punza” and the politically assertive “Mozampique.”Baba of Jit is, on the other hand, filled with themes of loss, subdued, resigned, sorrowfully see-through, nostalgic for career highlights without quite recapturing them, content with literalist songwriting and reflective… …
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How Mono Mukundu Got His Groove
Click or not: How Mono Mukundu Got His GrooveNot yet 50, Mono has played more than 1000 albums, sungura, chimurenga, reggae, rhumba, even holding his own as the go-to guitarist for the Pentecostal community. …
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The Butterfly Dialectic
Click or not: The Butterfly DialecticThe Butterfly Dialectic Karl Marx is out of a job in black America. His last prophet, Cornel West, beats a grumpy retreat from blackface capital everywhere he turns. The culture, with its emphasis on appearance and acquisition, is not so much an ideology as it is an ontology. “Money trees is the perfect place for shade”… …
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ZEXIE MANATSA'S UPS AND DOWNS
Click or not: ZEXIE MANATSA'S UPS AND DOWNSZexie Manatsa’s Green Arrows band Zexie Manatsa rose from an infant guitar prodigy in Mhangura to become one of the first local musicians of significant stature. In December 2006 the recently resuscitated Zimbabwe Music Awards paid homage to the grand patriarch of mainstream local music with the inaugural Cheuka Shure/Bheka Emva trophy. During the presentation… …