Album: Mapfumo Reissues

Two recent reissues on the Water label give us easier access to two key early albums from Zimbabwe's masterful Thomas Mapfumo. A hero of his nation's liberation struggle, Mapfumo is also a musical innovator of the highest order as the inventor of Chimurenga ("struggle music"), which fuses the tools and energy of rock and roll with folk elements. Most strikingly, chimurenga transposes the cyclical rhythmic lines of the mbira (thumb piano) to the electric guitar. Mapfumo sung in the Shona language — itself a political act — and wrote songs relating to Zimbabwe's civil war and subsequent independence.¹

Artist: Thomas Mapfumo and the Acid Band

Album: Hokoyo (1978)

Musical dispatches from the civil war, Hokoyo still manages to sound jubilant. The title track (translating to "Watch Out!") sounds like a groovy party with its chanted chorus and saxophone-aided groove. From there, the sound settles into the chimurenga template, with the brightly-plucked guitars coming to the forefront. This is very good stuff, although not quite as accomplished as the music that would follow it. Highly danceable, and dangerous to boot — Mapfumo was thrown in jail once the authorities figured out what the songs were about.

Although the fidelity of this re-issue is mostly excellent, this disc has a couple relatively minor sonic flaws: "Mhandu Musango", for example, has some static-y interference at the start that almost sounds like surface noise on a vinyl disc. Whether these are flaws in the master tapes or a flaw in the remastering for this disc is unclear. Ultimately, it doesn't particularly mar the enjoyment of this album.

Track picks: 1 - "Hokoyo", 3 - "Hwa-Hwa"

Artist: Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited

Album: Gwindingwi Rine Shumba (1980)

A masterpiece from start to finish. Not only is this album full of the joyful optimism brought about by independence², the music is strongly inspired throughout. There is simply no language gap in the presence of these guitars. Most songs feature duelling leads, the rhythms playing off each other in constantly evolving patterns. These songs are hugely captivating: Mapfumo's arresting vocals ranging from moans to shrieks to yodels, the simmering rhythms, and always always always those guitars.

There are some songs here familiar to me from the compilation Shumba: Vital Hits of Zimbabwe (itself an excellent entry point into Mapfumo's work³) but there are also some superb album cuts here, including the sublime "Tinodanana", which reminds us that Mapfumo's woodshedding days came in classic R&B cover bands. This disc has none of the minor sonic flaws present on Hokoyo. Put simply: this is essential stuff, and ranks amongst the great rock'n'roll albums of all time.

Track picks: 1 - "Shumba", 3 - "Mhondoro", 4 - "Tinodanana"

It is great to see these reissues in the stores, and hopefully their presence means that Mapfumo is getting his rightful cut. The packaging does leave something to be desired: each disc comes with an essay that does a good job of situating this music, but there is scanty information otherwise: no full personnel listings⁴, and no translation of lyrics or even song titles, a useful aid present in other Mapfumo releases I've seen. These minor quibbles aside, these albums are highly recommended.

---

¹ Making him, arguably, the author of the greatest rock'n'roll songs about agrarian reform, amongst other topics.

² Replete with several shout-outs to Robert Mugabe, a reminder of that moment before he slid from liberation hero to repressive dictator. Mapfumo held the post-independence government to account, and for his trouble, was exiled from Zimbabwe. He now lives in Oregon.

³ Also recommended is the Chimurenga Singles comp., composed of early Blacks Unlimited Sides recorded during the Civil War.

⁴ The liner notes do, at least, take care to give the names of the guitarists: Jonah Sithole and Leonard "Pickett" Chiyangwa, who should be far, far more famous than they are, ranked with any of the great guitar tandems you could name with two artists telepathically playing off each other: Verlane and Lloyd, Reed and Morrison, Richards and Jones, etc. etc.