VARIOUS ARTISTS / “Zimbabwe Mbira Music”
In Zim they say: women are mothers, men are children. Zim is Zimbabwe and if you only listened to the minute or so of international news that might mention Zim, you would probably only know of Zim as a basket case, another example of Africa’s inability to rule itself.
Mugabe would be a poster-elder for corruption, ineptitude, vanity, and would also be living proof that Africans are incapable of self-rule. That’s what you would know from the news, if you were the average American viewer and only knew what you got through the mainstream media.
How many of us remember, or ever knew, that Zim is the same country used to be called Rhodesia when British colonialism was in charge. I can hear a few readers moaning: oh, he’s going to go into an anti-colonialism screed; I thought this was a music website.
“Kalamu, why don’t you just write about the music and ease off with the politics?”
Did you know that the British had banned the mbira? That’s a big jolly roger. This week we are focusing on three Zim women musicians for whom the mbira is integral to their music.
If you would like to know more about the instrument, go here for a run down on the mbira, including a discussion of the differences between the mbira and other African instruments commonly called “thumb pianos.”
In the culture of the Shona people of Zim, the mbira is a sacred instrument traditionally only played by men. Zim women using the mbira is a statement in itself regardless of what their lyrics might say.
CHIWONISO MARAIRE
Chiwoniso was born in exile in 1976 to Zimbabwe parents. Her father Dumisani Maraire is both a professional musician and a professor of music. Chiwonsio started at a very early age, probably singing before she could fully talk, and dancing before she mastered walking.
"I was born into a very musical family, both my parents were musicians. My father was an amazing mbira player, my mother was a beautiful singer, so I was surrounded by this music from the day I was conceived, really, because they used to teach classes in the house as well. But at the same time they loved to listen to other people, so I grew up exposed to James Brown, Michael Jackson, Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Bach, Mozart, you name it, it was being played." —ChiwonisoChiwoniso attended high school in Zim when the family returned home in 1990, where she led a local choir. Deciding to pursue music seemed almost a given but Chiwonsio had no guarantee of success, nor was it clear what musical path she wanted to explore. She was a member of a hip hop oriented ensemble, A Peace of Ebony, which won a number of contests and “Rebel Woman,” one of her songs finished second in an international song writing contest that had over 1500 entries. For the last four years or so she has been working with her own band, Vibe Culture. Her last album, Rebel Woman, manages to simultaneously exemplify traditional Shona musical styles using traditional instruments as well as sound like a modern African dance band. This two-headed music is no accident. Chiwoniso is working assiduously to create a music that reflects life as it happens in her experiences and yet remain rooted in the culture with which she has chosen to identify.

"The song is about the physical conditions of fighting, and the price people pay," she explains, but it is also a tribute to strong women who suffer because they do not follow the restrictions society tries to place on them. "The truth is that when you're a strong woman you might lose your husband, your home, because the way the systems are structured you're not allowed to be strong as a woman, unless you follow the rules. This is a song about changing those rules." —ChiwonisoNETSAYI


“Monkey’s Wedding is really an evolution of the thematic and musical ideas, I began to explore on Chimurenga Soul. Musically, it is an album of hybridity - an attempt to process all my musical influences from home and the Western world into coherent and emotionally engaging music. Of course, such an effort has a political angle to it too - African music is appropriated, boxed, labeled and sold in the West. But I hope that Monkey’s Wedding confounds any such easy and frankly colonial classification. Thematically, Monkey’s Wedding treads similar territory, touching on all my experiences as someone who has lived in two very different cultures and, indeed, the no-mans-land between them” —NetsayiOnce again, Netsayi has me eagerly looking forward to her next issue. STELLA CHIWESHE








This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 7:55 am and is filed under Contemporary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
One Response to “VARIOUS ARTISTS / “Zimbabwe Mbira Music””
January 5th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Baba, I really enjoyed these selections. Each of the women brought something exciting, moving, and multi-tonal to the jukebox. I liked how their different sensibilities played against each other. Thanks for sharing. A really great collection of music.
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