As I was browsing through the music posted by Zimbabwean musicians on YouTube last week, I fortuitously came across a single titled Toputika Neshungu by Mbira Dze Nharira and I really enjoyed this song. I went further to search for more music from this group and discovered that they had even done an album titled Tozvireva Tingaputike which was not only released in Zimbabwe, but also on Sterns African Records label in the United Kingdom.
By Fred Zindi
I played it over and over again and that set me thinking. Why have I not heard this music before on our radio stations? Does this mean that if I had not gone on YouTube I would have never heard this Zimbabwean mbira music? These are the questions I still don’t have answers to.
Despite the thousands of hours spent by our radio stations playing music each week, we hardly hear mbira music on these stations. Radio broadcasters seem to prefer music coming from abroad or imitations of Western and Jamaican music by local artists.
During Zimbabwe’s colonial period, European missionaries taught us that mbira was evil due to its association with ancestral spirits which were deemed evil. Mbira music was regarded as abominable. Church members who were found playing mbira music were labelled pagans and were often ex-communicated from their Christian parishes. Thus, the popularity of mbira in Zimbabwe during colonial times declined. The Africans thus lost part of their culture this way.
However, the European anti-mbira propaganda seems to have disappeared lately. Unfortunately, some radio DJs who are still hanging on to that colonial mentality have not fully appreciated the music coming from this instrument. This is why our DJs hardly play mbira music from local groups such as Nyamasvisva, Mbira DzeNharira or Mawungira Enharira.
Since independence in 1980, mbira has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity with groups such as Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited, Sekuru Gora, Simon Mashoko, Ephat Mujuru and Spirit of The People, Stella Chiweshe, Dumisani Maraire and later Chiwoniso Maraire and Hope Masike. Mbira is now considered the national instrument of Zimbabwe. Traditional musicians remind their communities that mbira is played to encourage the spirits which protect the land and people of Zimbabwe. They are also reminded that neither mbira nor the spirits should be neglected if Zimbabweans wish to enjoy health and prosperity.
The ironic thing is that it is the same Europeans and other Westerners who seem to be more fascinated by our mbira music now. In the early 1970s, Maraire taught mbira music at Washington University which resulted in Paul Berliner, a white American, visiting Zimbabwe. Berliner teamed up with Mujuru to study and play mbira. He ended up writing a book The Soul of Mbira based on Zimbabwean mbira music and invited Mujuru to the United States where he also taught at Washington University in Seattle. In the early 1980s Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited band toured Holland, Germany and The United Kingdom. During their tour, they showcased mbira music with Chartwel Dutiro playing the instrument. Later on, Dutiro, the mbira player in the band, was invited by Keith Howard, a professor at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, who was so fascinated by the instrument that he asked him to teach Europeans how to play the instrument. Dutiro later started his own mbira academy, Mhararano in Devon, England.
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In Norway and Sweden schoolchildren were taught to play mbira through an exchange programme which involved Zimbabwean musicians. If you listen to these children playing and singing songs such as Nhemamusasa, you would think that they were brought up in Zimbabwe.
Mbira is mystical music which has been played for over a thousand years by various groups of the Shona people. Mbira pervades all aspects of Shona culture, both sacred and secular. Its most important function is as a “telephone to the spirits”, used to contact both deceased ancestors and traditional guardians, at all-night bira ceremonies. At these ceremonies, vadzimu (spirits of family ancestors), mhondoro (spirits of deceased chiefs) and makombwe (the most powerful guardian spirits of the Shona), give guidance on family and community matters and exert power over weather and health.
Mbira is required to bring rain during drought, stop rain during floods and bring clouds when crops are burned by the sun. Mbira is used to chase away harmful spirits and to cure illnesses with or without a n’anga (traditional diviner/herbalist). Mbira is included in celebrations of all kinds, including weddings, installation of new chiefs and more recently, government events such as independence day and international conferences.
Mbira is also required at death ceremonies and is played for a week following a chief’s death before the community is informed of his passing. At the grave ceremony, approximately one year after a person’s physical death, mbira is used to welcome that individual’s spirit back to the community.
In previous centuries, court musicians played mbira for Shona kings and their diviners. Although the mbira was originally used in a limited number of Shona areas, today it is popular throughout Zimbabwe. Mbira is desired for the general qualities it imparts: peaceful mind and strong life force. The Shona mbira is also rapidly becoming known around the world, due to exchange programmes, tours by both traditional musicians and Zimbabwean electric bands which include the instrument.
It is perhaps this supernatural and mystic role played by mbira that still frightens the Zimbabwean DJ.
As mentioned before, Westerners are already fascinated by this instrument. In the 1980’s, African music in the UK was played on radio stations such as Capital and BBC on Sunday nights until DJs such as Joe Shinner, John Peel, Charlie Gillet and Andy Kershaw who had all fallen in love with music coming from Zimbabwe could not resist the power of mbira music. They decided to include this music during their mainstream sessions. Kershaw was persuaded even further after listening to local mbira artists on his visit to the country (when he came to Zimbabwe to attend Biggie Tembo’s wedding).
If the Europeans are so fascinated by our mbira music, how can it be so difficult to persuade our own DJs to play it on radio? There are hundreds of good quality mbira recordings in libraries all over the country, but they all seem to be cursed.
Radio Zimbabwe plays 30 minutes of mbira in one of its programmes on Wednesdays. That is something, but there is need for more of these sessions and a stiffer campaign to have this music heard by everyone.
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