August is a sacred month in Zimbabwe’s collective memory and cultural calendar.
It is Heroes Month, Youth Month, and Women’s Month, a time when the nation reflects on the sacrifices of those who fought for liberation, the vibrancy and dreams of its youth, and the resilience of women whose labor, both visible and hidden, has carried families and communities through storms.
Within this triad of remembrance, hope, and recognition lies the heartbeat of the arts, for Zimbabwe’s cultural practitioners have always played a central role in chronicling history, inspiring imagination, and embodying resistance.
The position of artists in Zimbabwe today is deeply symbolic of the broader struggles faced by the nation. Economically, most artists live precarious lives.
The creative sector, while rich in talent, often fails to provide sustainable livelihoods.
Many artists survive on once-off gigs—performances, exhibitions, or commissioned works that rarely translate into steady incomes.
These gigs come at the cost of intensive creative processes that demand both emotional labor and financial investment.
Few artists in Zimbabwe can claim to have regular salaries comparable to other professions. Instead, they supplement their art with side hustles teaching, informal trading, or working in unrelated fields. Ironically, the income from these survival jobs often becomes the capital they reinvest in their artistic practice, sustaining a cycle where passion is both fueled and constrained by hardship.
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The structural causes of this condition are many. Zimbabwe’s low disposable incomes mean that audiences often see theatre tickets, music shows, or buying books as luxuries rather than essentials. This reality stifles the growth of a local market for creative output.
On the other hand, weak intellectual property enforcement has made piracy rampant, rendering royalties negligible. Poor monetisation systems mean artists rarely benefit proportionately from the distribution and consumption of their works. For many, international donor support and sporadic tours outside the country remain the only avenues of meaningful financial return. Yet this reliance is not sustainable, as it leaves local art tethered to external agendas and precarious funding cycles.
Despite these obstacles, Zimbabwean art retains its heroic essence, echoing the legacies of liberation struggle heroes and heroines. August is a reminder that artists, too, are warriors—defenders of memory, narrators of pain, and dreamers of alternative futures. In this way, the month’s spirit converges with the role of the arts, for to create in times of scarcity is itself an act of courage.
August, in Zimbabwean memory, has always been a month of remembrance and renewal—a period when the nation reflects on the legacies of its heroes, the role of youth in shaping tomorrow, and the ongoing recognition of women’s struggles and triumphs.
In the arts, this intersection is not merely symbolic; it is alive in the melodies, rhythms, and poetry that embody the spirit of collective resistance and celebration.
Within this context, Thomas Mapfumo’s enduring artistic journey provides a poignant thread, linking past struggles for liberation with contemporary expressions of identity, justice, and resilience. Mapfumo, often called the “Lion of Zimbabwe,” has never reduced music to entertainment—it has always been a site of struggle, healing, and self-definition. His recent collaboration with Groundation on the song Holding On reaffirms this intergenerational, transnational dialogue: the music transcends boundaries, serving as a bridge between Zimbabwe’s liberation ethos and global calls for justice and freedom.
The resonance of Mapfumo’s art was felt profoundly in his recent performance in the United Kingdom, where the audience did not merely witness a concert but experienced an immersion into Zimbabwe’s cultural heartbeat.
Unlike the metrics of attendance or comparisons to past events, what stood out was the aesthetic value and authenticity of the performance.
Each song carried the weight of memory and the fire of conviction, reminding those present of the power of art to create community across borders.
For many, the performance was not just music, but a moment of communion a return to cultural roots, an echo of history, and a promise to the future.
This is where Mapfumo’s genius lies: in his ability to offer quality experiences that go beyond numbers, transforming gatherings into living archives of Zimbabwe’s struggles and aspirations. Importantly, Mapfumo is not just holding the stage for himself but passing the torch to a new generation of artists, such as his protégé Kurai Makore, ensuring that the revolutionary pulse of Chimurenga music continues to find new voices.
In linking his collaboration with Groundation and his UK performance, one sees how Mapfumo embodies the very spirit of August’s commemorations.
His music honors the legacy of Zimbabwe’s heroes, foregrounds the role of the youth as cultural inheritors, and creates space for women’s voices within his art’s liberatory discourse.
It is a testimony that the struggle for justice and dignity is not bound by time or place; rather, it evolves, adapts, and finds new expressions in every performance and every collaboration.
The aesthetic depth of his recent works and performances reminds us that art, when wielded with consciousness, becomes both heritage and horizon a celebration of what has been, and a call to what must come.
Just as music, visual arts, poetry, and performance have long served as compasses pointing Zimbabweans toward truth, resilience, and cultural identity, artistry today reminds us that the role of the creative is not simply to entertain but to become a custodian of memory and a visionary of possibility.
Whether through the rhythms of music, the brushstrokes of painting, the cadence of spoken word, or the embodiment of stories on stage, each form of art has the power to transcend borders and generations, weaving together the heroic past, the struggles of the present, and the hopes of the future.
For younger creatives across these disciplines.
This is both a torch and a challenge: to craft work that not only mirrors societal realities but also ignites the courage to imagine better worlds.
In this, the advice is clear true artistry lies not in chasing numbers, trends, or fleeting acclaim, but in cultivating depth, meaning, and resonance that will echo long after the final note, brushstroke, or performance fades.
In the spirit of August’s convergence of Heroes, Youth, and Women’s Month, the lesson for artists is to root themselves in legacy while daring to reimagine futures, ensuring that their art whether musical, visual, literary, or performative becomes a timeless rhythm of struggle, hope, and renewal.
- *Raymond Millagre Langa is a Zimbabwean musician, poet, and orator whose work blends artistic expression with social commentary, highlighting cultural identity and community issues. As the founder of Indebo Edutainment, he uses his talents to educate, inspire, and empower audiences through music, performance, and literary arts.
