Robson Banda - Kupfuma Hakuna Nharo

Robson's Banda's roots were Zambian, but his music was pure Zimbabwean roots, as this mid-eighties chimurenga scorcher proves. With his band the Black Eagles (later reorganized as the New Black Eagles!), he played a mix of chimurenga, jit and sungura styles meant to get you off your seat.

Thomas Mapfumo

Thomas Mapfumo made revolutionary changes in Zimbabwe's pop-music scene by recording a song for which he'd written his own music. Before Mapfumo, songs in the traditional style were always based on tunes that had been handed down for generations. Mapfumo's music, chimurenga ("music of struggle"), became popular during the civil war against White minority rule, but his popularity made the government unhappy. In 1977 he was sent to a prison camp for subversion. To obtain his release, Mapfumo agreed to perform for the ruling party, but at the concert he sang only his most revolutionary songs. "I told them that since I'd been in detention, I didn't have time to write new ones." Mapfumo grew up in the country, went to a British colonial school, and worked as a herd boy, watching over the cattle. After hearing the Beatles and Wilson Pickett in the early 60s, Mapfumo taught himself guitar and started a band that played pop music from African countries as well as Beatles, Rolling Stones, funk, and soul. Mapfumo left Western music behind to form the Acid Band. Their first album, Hokoyo ("Beware"), contained the songs that led to Mapfumpo's detention. After Zimbabwe's liberation in 1978, Mapfumo formed Blacks Unlimited and released Gwindingwe Rine Shumba ("Lion in the Bush"), a joyous celebration of his country's independence.

Marehwarehwa

Coming from Thomas Mapfumo's "unplugged" 50th birthday tour of the U.S. in 1995, Live at El Rey documents reimaginings of his music for two mbiras, bass, and drums, which is a dramatically stripped-down ensemble compared to the normal Blacks Unlimited army of musicians. The result is stark, and mainly rewarding for the clarity of the mbiras (hypnotic as ever) played by Ngoni Makombe and Bezil Makombe.

Shumba

Nyoka Musango

Zimbabwean Political Art

                                          

                               Owen Maseko : they made us sing                                                                                                                                                                    

    Tsvagarai Mukwazhi : Scramble for space, market place

Chitima Nditakure

Pembarai

a song celebrating independence from England

Zimbabwe-Mozambique