Mapfumo gets out the razor for a new look

Mapfumo gets out the razor for a new look

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By Banning Eyre

THOMAS Mapfumo--the Lion of Zimbabwe, the Chimurenga Guru, "Mukanya" or "Gandanga" to loving fans back home--has long been identified with his asymmetrical, ropey dreadlocks, ritually unleashed from beneath a fedora or a floppy hat during his shows to fly out in all directions as he sings and prowls the stage.

Few now remember that all during the '60s, when Mapfumo was a rock 'n' roll singer, and the '70s, when he composed his career-making revolutionary pop songs, he wore short hair. Recently, after two-plus decades of dreadlocked glory, Mapfumo got out the razor. When I met him in Boston on July 8 to accompany him on a ten-day East Coast tour with his band the Blacks Unlimited, Mapfumo told me he'd been thinking about dropping the dreads for a long time. Like Zimbabwe itself, he was ready for a change. The band's trumpeter, Brooks Barnett, reported that it was watching a performance video of a recent concert in London that did the trick. Mapfumo looked at his receding hairline and ever more trailing dreads and said, "Enough." A week later, in Austria, the deed was done. Looking liberated, he now smiles and tells those who ask, "We are feeling a lot of breezes now."

The winds of change may be blowing over Mapfumo's newly coifed pate, and even within his venerable band, but sadly, the same cannot be said of Zimbabwe. As the country's failed leaders dig in their heels ever more stubbornly, as violence continues to rise, and living standards to sink, pressure keeps building, and there is no relief in sight. The first night I spoke with Mapfumo this summer, he told me that people in Zimbabwe are now talking about civil war. Mugabe's government has made change through the political process impossible. The opposition MDC party is effectively hamstrung and all but silenced, and as Mapfumo sees it, no other force can now rise to take its place. Many now see nowhere else to turn but armed struggle, a situation sadly reminiscent of the one that existed thirty years ago in Rhodesia. Mapfumo clearly took no joy in making this observation, but there was no mistaking his sense that a truly horrific showdown seems to be in the works.

Aside from the national tragedy for Zimbabwe's people, the troubles there have taken a toll on Mapfumo's business. Start with the fact that Zimbabwe's currency is virtually worthless now, drastically devaluing all his assets and earnings back home. He was recently forced to sell his beloved soccer team, the Sporting Lions. The team began in the early 90s with a lineup of eager young men from the Mbare ghetto, and rose to the premier leagues during the years Mapfumo owned the franchise. "I loved that team," he told me with genuine sadness in Boston. "And I will continue to support them. It is my dream to one day own a soccer team again." Add to this the fact that what began five years ago as casual censorship of Mapfumo's songs on state controlled radio has now blossomed into a full-scale ban on his new songs, many of which cast a cold, hard eye on Zimbabwe's present corruption, violence, and economic failure. Zimbabweans have not been able to hear Mapfumo's last three albums on the airwaves. It's a ground rule of music business anywhere: no radio play hurts business. Mapfumo says this is censorship as bad as or even worse than what he experienced under the Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith in the late 1970s.

Mapfumo moved his family to Eugene, Oregon, in 2000, and since then he's been going home to Zimbabwe to play shows each December/January. This year, he stayed in Harare into April, recording and performing despite the censorship, threats, and deteriorating conditions. Some band members report that Zimbabweans who might otherwise come out to Mapfumo shows sometimes stay home, afraid of being singled out for beatings by the many rogue elements roaming the streets, intent on intimidating opposition to the government. "Those guns can come out at any time," one musician told me.

The band played one recent show in Chinoyi, a hotbed of support for Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. When Mapfumo played songs from the 1970's liberation war years, the comrades danced and smiled. But when he came to newer material, focusing on the hardships Zimbabweans face now, they became unhappy. Agents of the feared CIO (Central Intelligence Organization) approached Blacks Unlimited doormen and warned them that if Mapfumo kept on singing these songs, people in the audience, and even the band, would be beaten. "It was very tense," recalled the band's Zimbabwean manager. On hearing of these warnings, Mapfumo played one last song and ended the show early, not interested in being threatened.

Then there was the problem of recording his new album. First the band had trouble booking time at Shed Studio, and there were strong suggestions that the Ministry of Information was meddling to try and prevent the Blacks Unlimited from recording. Then when the work was nearly done, the studio's hard drive was mysteriously erased. The band recorded the entire album again, but soon after they left Zimbabwe in April, the music reportedly went missing again. Mapfumo says this was a false report and that the tracks are being sent to the U.S. to be completed here. But the fact remains, Mapfumo's new music is not being heard in Zimbabwe, and this is the longest time he has gone without releasing a new album since about 1990. Mapfumo seems to take all this amazingly in stride. "This is going to be one of our best albums," he assured me.

"That guy is very brave," said one musician, new to the band, of Mapfumo. "He has no fear. Not very many people would have the courage to say the things he has been saying." No surprise that the state controlled press has been tough on Mapfumo. They once hailed him as a hero, but now revel in any hint of his troubles. No sooner did word of the singer's new look hit town in Harare, than rumors began to spread about fatal illness, chemo-therapy, etc. You know the drill. All imaginings. The man is fit and strong, and showing no signs of backing away from what is clearly a deep moral cause: to shine an unflagging light on the worsening plight of ordinary Zimbabweans.

Fast forward to Mapfumo's arrival in Boston. You might imagine that the singer would be dispirited by these events, or that he would trim back the size of his band to save money. Think again. Not only were his spirits high, and his creative juices flowing--Mapfumo never stops composing and rehearsing new songs--but he was touring the biggest band he's had in the U.S. in years. The changes start with the sonic and spiritual core of the band, the sacred, iron-pronged mbira. At its height in the late 90s, the Blacks Unlimited had three mbira players, but in the band's recent American incarnation, just one player, Chaka Mhembere has been holding the fort. Now Bezil Makombe--probably the most gifted mbira player ever to play in this band--has returned, restoring a great richness to the sound.
Afropop Worldwide
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