Mapfumo's new album batters competition

Mapfumo's new album batters competition

MUKANYA

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• Mapfumo heads home

• Satire too close to the bone for Zim government

• Mapfumo on UK tour

• Mapfumo's missing lyrics

By Showbiz Reporter

THOMAS Mapfumo's Chaputika album is battering competition at the record bars, figures released this week reveal.

The album has climbed to third best selling African album at leading record bar Sterns Music. The statistics are for sales outside Zimbabwe, mainly in Europe and the United States.

Chaputika, released exactly two weeks ago has also burst into number one on Zimbabwe's top 20 selling albums.

The 10-track album has been variously described as controversial, brilliant, and an artistic triumph by music critics. The album is a mixture of old Mapfumo classics and new songs all recorded during a live performance before a sell-out crowd in Milton Keynes, England.

Last week, the albums producers say there were attempts to sabotage the album sales when a sidekick of Thomas Mapfumo, secondary school headmaster Cuthbert Chiromo claimed Mapfumo had not okayed the release of the album.

However, the producers this week showed New Zimbabwe.com a contract signed with Mapfumo for the album. They said the noise was coming from Gramma Records who were bitter that the album deal went to rivals, Metro Studios.

Producer Rodreck Chipezeze: "Mapfumo has told us to ignore Chiromo. We don't know why he has decided to be controversial and confrontational. One can only guess that he feels left out."

Probably the most controversial song on the album, the number 5 track Masoja neMapurisa (Soldiers and Police) opens with the line "Mamvemveeee!", another Mapfumo classic which was banned from the airwaves. In the song, Mapfumo asks an unnamed politician, thought to be President Mugabe, what he would do if the police and soldiers that he has been sending to beat up innocent civilians suddenly refused to take his orders.

"Tinotizira kure vasatibata/Tinotizira kunyika dzavamwe (We will flee so that they don't catch us/We will seek sanctuary in foreign lands)," the politician responds in the chorus.

He then reminds the politician of the fate of African dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko [Zaire (now DRC)] and Idi Amin (Uganda) who both died in exile after the collapse of their autocratic regimes.
The album CHAPUTIKA is on sale at Spinalong, Express and Edgars Stores. In the UK the album is already out and is available from Sterns Music in London (http://www.sternsmusic.co.uk) and will be released at HMV next week. Alternatively you can contact 02075824343 or 07968129345
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