Mukanya’s album material vanishes in studio mishap

Mukanya’s album material vanishes in studio mishap

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By Trevor Muhonde
28/03/04
ALL material for Chimurenga guru Dr Thomas Mapfumo’s latest 11-track album that he was polishing up has disappeared from computers at Shed Studios, Standard Plus has established.

The Chimurenga maestro, whose hard-hitting lyrics are popular with Zimbabwe’s suffering masses, said all the material for the album — which was supposed to be completed early this week — had disappeared from computers at the Harare-based Shed Studios.

Mapfumo, who lives in self-exile in the US, blamed the recording firm’s engineers for the mishap. Because of the problem the Chimurenga star’s latest album might be delayed.

He told StandardPlus that he was only informed of the disappearance of his work, which he and his band — the Blacks Unlimited — had spent a whole week of long hours working on, on Tuesday. The album contained 11 tracks.

“We were recording in the studio the whole of last week. After doing 11 tracks we were happy that we had completed most of the work since what was only left was the mixing, only to realise that our work had not been saved in the computer,” Mukanya said in an interview in Harare on Wednesday.

He said he was meeting the crew at Shed Studios to try to work out something. According to a source at Shed though, Mapfumo has been allocated another week to re-record his works.

This will mean that Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited will now have to fast-track some of their last shows in Harare so that he spends more time in the studio before he goes back to the US.

Mapfumo has been highly critical of some of the policies of the governing Zanu PF party. His monster 2001 hit album, Chimurenga Explosion, was dominated by songs on the general decay in Zimbabwe.
From The Standard
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