Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited
Rise Up
Real World CDRW136, 2006
Thomas Mapfumo was born in 1945 in Marondera, a small town south of the Rhodesian capital, Salisbury . He spent his first ten years living in the countryside with his grandparents, tending cattle herds, and waking up long before sunrise to do chores before school. Though was moving inexorably toward racial civil war, Mapfumo was living an old-fashioned, traditional life, mostly removed from the bitterness building in the cities and townships. One of his greatest pleasures back then was the music of his people, the Shona, music he experienced in family and clan gatherings not unlike those his ancestors had been holding for centuries. Traditional children's tunes, songs of celebration accompanied by the drums called ngoma, and especially, the sacred music of the metal-pronged mbira, an instrument whose beautiful, cycling melodies could summon the presence of ancestor spirits--these things formed the basis of Mapfumo's musical personality, a force that continues to shape the history and spiritual life of his country.
When Mapfumo was ten, he moved to Mbare, the poorest and toughest black township of Salisbury . Life was different in the urban home of Mapfumo's mother, stepfather, two brothers and two sisters. Mbare was a center of black protest against the Rhodesian regime, and a scene of random police actions designed to intimidate would-be rebels. Mapfumo's stepfather was active both in the Christian church and in Shona traditional religious circles. He taught his children a highly moral worldview that saw no contradiction between the guidance of an almighty Christian God, and that of Shona ancestor spirits. In Mbare, Mapfumo also heard radio for the first time, and he was wowed by African jazz from Johannesburg and Bulawayo, classic big band Rumba from the , and especially, R&B and soul from and .
Mapfumo began to sing, and in high school, he joined his first band, the Zutu Brothers. For the next ten years, while the liberation war that would eventually transform into roiled though the country, Mapfumo made his way as an itinerant singer. Both in the Cosmic Four Dots, the band where he learned basic musical skills, and in the far more successful Springfields, Mapfumo was the rock 'n' roll singer, the man charged with reproducing vocal performances by the likes of Elvis Presley, Bobby Darrin, Wilson Picket, and Mick Jagger. (To this day, Mapfumo is a walking juke box of hits from the 1960s.) His identity as a singer made him something of a happy rebel. When the police came through his neighborhood one day demanding that everyone line up outside their houses, Mapfumo turned up in the shiny, silver jacket he wore on-stage. This playful show of disrespect nearly landed Mapfumo in jail, where he'd have been lucky to escape with a beating. But a cop who was a Springfields fan stepped in and let him go. In 1972, Mapfumo moved to a mining town and started a band called the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band. The band got paid for entertaining the miners, but had to work day jobs as well, including tending chickens in a "chicken run," hence the name. It was here, working with guitarist Joshua Dube, that Mapfumo first adapted songs from the ancient mbira repertoire and worked them into the band's Afro-rock repertoire. To sing in Shona was unusual, and in the context of the escalating war, automatically political. So as Mapfumo continued to develop as a songwriter, his devotion to traditional music inevitably politicized him. As Mapfumo moved on to work first with the Acid Band, and then with the Blacks Unlimited, everything came together. He developed his mbira pop sound with guitarists Jonah Sithole and Leonard "Picket" Chiyangwa, bassist Charles Makokova, and other innovative young players. Mapfumo's lyrics reflected the concerns of the people around him--hardships in the rural areas, young men heading into the bush to fight, and a rising sense of indignation at white rulers who had systematically devalued Shona culture for four generations. The guerilla fighters had taken the name chimurenga, Shona for struggle, and Mapfumo decided to call his new sound "chimurenga music." Mapfumo means "spears" in Shona, and Mapfumo's early chimurenga singles, including "Mothers, Send Your Children to War" and "Trouble in the Communal Lands," lived up to his combative name. "People were being killed by soldiers," recalls Mapfumo. "They were running from their homes, and coming to live in town like squatters. Many used to cry when they listened to the lyrics of these songs." Mapfumo's chimurenga singles captured the imagination of blacks nation wide. Near the end of war, the out-maneuvered Rhodesians arrested Mapfumo briefly and attempted to use him to rally support for a last desperate attempt to hold onto some vestige of power. But the tide of history had turned, and in 1980, Robert Mugabe was elected president of a new nation. That year, Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited shared the stage in Salisbury (now called Harare ) with Bob Marley and the Wailers. As took its first hopeful steps, Mapfumo sang rallying songs for the new leaders. But if they imagined him their stooge, they soon learned otherwise. For though Mapfumo had become a national hero by singing theme songs for a revolution, his deeper message was really about culture, not politics. Zimbabweans had been brainwashed by the Rhodesians, tricked into abandoning their ancestral ways. Black rule was only a first step toward the cultural renaissance Mapfumo envisioned. When leaders began to reveal themselves as venal and corrupt, they found themselves targets of chimurenga music. In 1989, Mapfumo decried sleaze and graft in the song "Corruption." The next year, in the song "Jojo," he warned young people not to let themselves be used by dirty politicians. The music also evolved. In the late '80s, Mapfumo introduced first one, then two, then three mbiras to the band lineup, and he came to think of them as core of the Blacks Unlimited sound. He challenged his guitarists, horn players and keyboard players to accommodate themselves to the mbiras, and he challenged his mbira players to learn the African jazz, and "jit" songs that were also key elements in the chimurenga sound. The band began to tour internationally, and made landmark recordings for Chris Blackwell's Mango Records, Corruption (1989) and Chamunorwa (1990). In the '90s, Mapfumo faced a choice between devoting himself to an international career and keeping the home fires burning. For him, this was no choice at all. He toured and released his music abroad when possible, but he kept his energies focused on , releasing a cassette of new songs every year, and playing as often as five nights a week during peak season. A Blacks Unlimited concert in during this period was an extraordinary communal experience. It began at 8:00 in the evening, and could last until daylight. It included deep mbira anthems, rollicking township dance grooves, and refracted glimmers of reggae, R&B, and African jazz. The songs decried alcoholism, AIDS, domestic violence, and people's devotion to foreign things--all prices that Mapfumo felt Zimbabweans had paid for abandoning their ancient culture. In the late '90s, Mapfumo increasingly focused his ire on the country's leaders, who he felt had failed the people. 's state radio briefly refused to play critical songs from his 1999 album, Chimurenga Explosion, notably "Disaster," which stated the country's predicament in no uncertain terms. In April 2000, the government received an electoral setback with the election of a substantial number of opposition candidates to the parliament. Among their reactions to this were threats against Mapfumo, and trumped up charges that he had bought stolen cars. A few months later, Mapfumo quietly moved his family out of the country to Oregon , where they have based their lives ever since. Mapfumo continues to record incendiary music, to have it banned, and until recently, to return to and play for his loyal fans, risking arrest and harassment each time. In 2005, Thomas concluded it was no longer safe to go to . But although in exile, he remains engaged, and passionately creative. His 2005 release, Rise Up (due out on Real World Records in 2006), is a tour de force musically, and full of enough political barbs that it has, once again, earned the honor of being banned on Zimbabwean state radio. For all the darkness that surrounds him, Mapfumo remains peaceful, buoyant personality, in love with life, laughter, and music. He owns a soccer team, the Sporting Lions, all boys from Mbare, and scrappy on the field. Mapfumo has lost many great musicians to AIDS and other calamities, but his band remains as strong as ever, forever replenished with young musicians eager to contribute to the legend. Zimbabweans affectionately call him "Mukanya," a reference to his family totem, the baboon, and even as they are seduced by the latest hip-hop and ragga, they remain attuned to Mukanya's latest word. Few bandleaders in Africa , or anywhere, have been so consistently relevant to the lives of their people as Thomas Mapfumo.- Banning Eyre
THOMAS: The CD is called "Rise Up."
BANNING: Before we go to the songs Thomas, this CD has had quite a history. As I understand, you recorded the songs twice already in Zimbabwe, and the tapes went missing. Tell us the story.
THOMAS: Well, this one is a different one, because the other won that actually got involved with what happened in the studio last time, was a different thing, and the music was something different from what we here. We have only two songs from that other CD included on this one. It's new. This is something new. We have one old song that we re-recorded. "Mukadzi Wangu." I think you still remember the song. [SINGS.] We played that some time ago, and he we recorded in a long time ago, and we decided to re-record it. It was going to sound something new, rather than the old style. "Mukadzi Wangu" means "My Wife." This one is about a man who leaves his family to go abroad and work for his family because there's no work back home, and you cannot afford to look after his family because he is not working and so he decides, "Well, I'm leaving this country. I'm going to go out there and look for a job. I'm going to go there and work for my family and come back after some time. I'm leaving my wife and children. That's the story.
BANNING: He's making a big sacrifice, a familiar story for Zimbabweans today.
THOMAS: That's true. The first song we have there is "Kova Rira Mukati."
[BE: Song is sweet, melancholy, soulful, wearily resigned, gentle.]
THOMAS: "Some People Don't Talk." They keep quiet, whilst things are going wrong, like the situation back in Zimbabwe where people are not even talking, and yet there are problems within the country where poor people are suffering. Somebody is holding onto the power for all that long. He has been there for over 23 years now, and he wants to complete maybe 30 years, holding onto power, clinging onto power. And we are saying, "It's up to you, the people. You have to make a decision. Do you want this guy to destroy the country, or do you want to do something about it?." So we are saying, "It is up to you, the people, to make sure you're going to stop this man from whenever he is doing. He's not doing anyone good. He has been there for a long time, and he doesn't want to let go of the power. He doesn't want to listen to anyone. We're having too many conflicts in that country, so it's up to us the people to make a decision."
BANNING: Can you quote me some of the actual lines of the song?
THOMAS: SHONA. It means, "It is up to you, mothers, up to you fathers, up to you boys and girls. Look at the situation that we are in today. To make the situation right, it is up to us, to stand up and say something. We must rise up and fight back. We need to fight back."
[BE: Fast jit, led by girls singing.]
THOMAS: That's "Dogura Masango." It means, "I'm Going Away." "I'm running away from problems. So I'm going to go away. I don't know where I'm going. But I'm just going away. I'm running away. I'm getting out of this country because there are a lot of problems, and I cannot wait for these problems to destroy my life, so I need to go somewhere where I will do something about myself. I don't look for me. I'll be gone. I might be coming back sometime, but I don't know when." It's a song about the people who are leading that country, and going to live in some other countries like England, America, all over the world. They are running away from the situation back home, so they can't take it. The songs about them.
BANNING: Sango is like the forest.
THOMAS: Yes, the forest. "Mukadzi Wangu." This is the one we just talked about. It was on Ngangariro, along with "Nyoka Musango." It's one of the oldest songs. "Musandi Wenge."
BANNING: Let's do this one, number six. "Zvakuana."
THOMAS: Yeah, this one is about young girls who are careless with their lives, like when they go out there to clubs, and they hook up to some guys, and sometimes they go out there to sleep with the guys, and then end up being pregnant, and comeback now crying, because the baby has no father. No one claims to be the father of that baby, and now she is saying. The father of the girl is saying, "It's your fault. I have always been telling you not to go out there, and not to hook up with men. You better look after yourself. Look now, you come back pregnant. You're going to have a baby without a father, and it's going to be your fault. I've always want you, and this is why I've been warning you. See where you are now?" Zvakuana means "You Have Made Problems for Yourself." "The problems that you have now are problems of your own making. You brought those problems to yourself, so don't cry."
BANNING: Okay, here's number seven, "Dodya Marasha." This is the one you were practicing at my house. This is one that uses this keyboard player. Who is that?
THOMAS: He's a white guy who lives in Oregon. In Eugene. I don't remember his name now. We hired him to play the keyboard. He did very well. Yeah, he did very well. "Dodya Marasha" is like a, here we are in America. We are in New York. It's like a paradise. People don't think one day the world is going to come to an end. It's not the world that comes to an end, it's when you die. That's the end of your world. You understand? So some people don't realize where they're coming from or where they're going. They just think every day as Christmas. They don't even recognize God, and they don't live by the rules of God. I've seen so many people you're moving in the streets. They just don't care who they are, what they're doing. There are those kind of people who we see, who just don't care whether they die or not, where they are, where they're going to sleep, what they're going to do the next day. They don't care about that. This song is warning all those kind of people that the world will come to an end, so you better realize, you better know that there is the Almighty God, and you've really got to expect him. Live by the rules of God, and do what God says. "Dodya Marashsa" is like "I'm Eating Fire." It's a way of saying things, "When I'm eating fire, I'm going to spit fire, say of what I want to say." This is what the song is saying.
BANNING: There was something about charcoal.
THOMAS: Charcoal, that's right. When you eat charcoal, its fire. You can't eat charcoal. It's fire that we're talking about. "Now I'm going to eat charcoal and I'm going to say what I want to say. I'm not going to hide anything. I'm going to say what I want to say, and I'm what does that everything."
BANNING: Can you give me a few lines from the song?
THOMAS: "This world is not my home. We're all passersby. We're passing through, and no one owns the land. We have to realize that we're the children of God, and in the end, the world is going to come to an end. Where you are going, you will never know where you're going, but still, you've got to live by the rules of God. You've got to abide by the rules of God, and observe the rules of God." And that's the meaning of the rest of the song.
BANNING: It has this musical change, and then this chorus in the second part.
THOMAS: [SINGS] That's a nice chorus. I'm saying, "I finished. I've said all I wanted to say, and I finished, and I'm saying. So I leave it up to you. You make your decision."
BANNING: Hears number four, "Musandi Wenge (Don't Hate Me)."
THOMAS: Yeah, this song is about, you know when you tell someone the truth, and they hate you for telling the truth. In this song I'm saying, "I'm still one of you. I'm criticizing the way you do things, but don't forget I'm still one of you. I'm still your brother. But I want to see the situation corrected. We want the right thing to be done, the right things to be done for the people. So don't hate me for that. And don't forget that I'm still one of you. I'm not committing you, but I'm trying to help you, so that you will know I love you as a brother. I'm only advising you to do good things. I don't hate you, but I hate the things that you do to the people."
BANNING: That's a good message. I hope they take it to heart. [WE LAUGH] Here's number five, "Marudzi Nemarudzi." [Sweet, melodious melody. Rather like a gospel song. Folksy. Warm. Reassuring.]
THOMAS: Well, this is a song about the rest of the world. "We differ in our colors. We are black. You were white. Some are yellow. Some are what. You know? But still, we are the same people. We breathe the same air. We do the same things, but we differ when it comes to language, our skins, the color of our skins. But in the eyes of God, we are the same. We die the same way. Whatever happens, we are just the same people." We don't have to segregate, or to say I am black, I'm better than you. Or you are white, and you want to say you are better than me. Nobody is better than the other. We are all the same people, and in the eyes of God, we are the children of God, so people must stop thinking maybe the other way, that if I have money, if I'm doing well, I'm somebody else. No, you're not somebody else. You're just a person. You are just like me. You could be rich, or you could be richer. You could have millions, but still, you are like me. When you die, you go 6 feet under, and nobody will recognize your millions, because you are dead. So when you go, everything that you leave, you leave those things for the living. Isn't it? Those who are still living will inherit your millions. You can't go there with millions. You can't go down to the grave with millions. You have to leave everything.
BANNING: That's a classic. There's the blues song that used to talk about that very same thing. What's the title?
THOMAS: "Marudzi Nemarudzi" "People of All Walks of Life."
BANNING: Here's number eight, "Hande Baba." [Driving beat, minor key. Energized, urgent feel. Thomas has to listen for awhile to remember the song.]
THOMAS: "Hande Baba" "Let's Move Ahead." Let's go on with our daily lives. We know what is happening in this world. We are not as free as we thought we could be. We are very poor. Some people deny us freedom of speech, freedom of movement, but still, we are the living ones, so let's carry on living. You cannot be down hearted, or say, "Well, if I don't have money, what am I going to do? I'm going to hang myself, because I'm not having this and that." No, you don't have to do that. You don't have to think like that. Fight on. Let's go. Keep on fighting. Maybe, one day you're going to win, so let's carry on. Some people, they get down hearted when they're in a situation, like when people are oppressed. They say, "What I might want to do now? What's going to happen to me?." No, you don't have to think like that. You have to stand up and fight. Keep on, carry on fighting.
BANNING: So it's interesting, in the first song you're telling people that they have to get up and fight. Don't just accept it. And here you are saying, don't be depressed. Don't take it lying down.
THOMAS: That's right.
BANNING: Then number nine, "Varwere (The Sick)."
THOMAS: There are a lot of patients in this world. People are suffering from a lot of diseases, like the AIDS virus, some other diseases, cancer. You know what I'm talking about. So, it's like there are so many of them today. We need the worldto help the people who are suffering from AIDS and from other diseases. We don't have to just look at them and maybe laugh at them. It's not their wish to be associated with the sort of disease. It's something, maybe from God. Who knows? Nobody knows. But we need to help one another. We need to put our money to good use. We must help these people. We use this money to help these people. We see a lot of rich people, they go round, by cars, and the live in nice houses. They have big houses with so many rooms. When you come out here in the streets, you see a lot of people sleeping in the streets. Who is caring for them? You hear a lot of people like Bush and Mugabe, every world leader. They say we are looking after the people, when we see a lot of people suffering. Is there no money to care for these people? There is a lot of money, but people don't want to do that. Why? We need to realize that we need to help these people because they have no way, no one to look after them, nowhere to go. So who's gonna care for them? It's you, the people at the top who have to realize that these people need to be helped, and you need to help them. We're talking of the world leaders. They look at the situation. It's going from bad to worse every day, and they claim to be looking after the people, when I don't look after the people. "There are too many sick people in this world today." Can you play a little for me? Started from where those girls start. "People are dying and thousands every day. What are we going to do about these people? People are dying every day because of this certain disease that we hear about, and no one is doing nothing about it, so what are we going to do? Are we going to help these people? We have the resources, but someone up their doesn't want to do that."
BANNING: Like Bush with his $15 billion. Here's number 10, "Musawuraye Wadiki." [Kind of a fast reggae feel. Minor brass line. The funky thing. Trumpet player Brooks takes a nice, free solo.] Gilbert sounds nice. He has a laid-back touch.
THOMAS: Yeah, yeah. He's a good guitarist. Here, we are talking about the youth of the world. A lot of our youth are dying for nothing. They're being set out there to war, like we have you dying in Iraq, we have you dying in Palestine, you dying all over the world. Even in Zimbabwe, the youth are being used. They die for nothing. Actually, we are supposed to be protecting the youth, since there the leaders of tomorrow. "You are very old. You are old. Then you have to quit. Let the youth takeover. Let the new blood takeover, and we have to protect the youth, because they're the leaders of tomorrow." We don't have to kill the youth. If we kill the youth, what sort of country regards to have? Are going to have future leaders? That's not going to happen if we keep sending these youth to useless wars. Do I remember now what was the title?[LISTENS]
BANNING: Can you just translate some of these lines as they go by?
THOMAS: Let the background come. "Let's looked after the young ones. Don't destroy the youth."
BANNING: This seems like a continuation of "Jojo" and "Vechi Diki." [THOMAS CHUCKLES.] Here's the last one, "Pasi Ari Gute." [Dark, minor, traditional beat. This is the stuff that made Mapfumo. Rich vocal work. Ooo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo.]
THOMAS: This one is "Pasi Ari Gute." "The Earth is Hungry." "So many people have died here on earth, and we don't stop dying. The earth doesn't get enough of us. It still wants us to die. There is enough land for our graves. So do not cry for him. You know what happened to him. It's not an unusual thing. People die. So you must realize that it's an ongoing process. We will always die. Some are being born, and some are dying. Some are sick in hospitals, waiting to die. So this is an ongoing process. It will never stop. Don't cry for him. He has gone. He has been taken by the earth. I will be the next one, and you are going to be the next one too. Don't be surprised." That's the story. You must accept that.
BANNING: Wow, this is strong stuff. So this album will probably come out soon in Zimbabwe.
THOMAS: Very soon.
BANNING: I read about what happened when the live album came out. There was trouble in some markets, and the producers father was beaten up. There were a couple songs on this album that seemed to hit a nerve.
THOMAS: The song that actually started everything was "Masoldier ne Mapurisa." "The Soldiers and the Police." When people revolt, the leaders always call on the soldiers and police to go and beat up the people, to try and shut up the people. This is the situation. So in this song, we were just saying, "What you going to do when they come after you?" And this man was answering. He said, "I will call on the soldiers and the police to go and beat up the people." And we said, "Well, some of these people are the relatives of the soldiers and the police. So maybe one day the soldiers and the police will say no. We don't want to go out there and beat up the people for nothing. Then what you going to do?" Then he was saying, "Well, I'm going to run away into exile." So we were trying to say things like, "You know what happened to Amin? You know what happened to Mobutu? Are you going to end up doing the same thing?"
BANNING: You actually named those guys in the lyrics of the song?
THOMAS: Yeah, I did, and Hitler also. I think that angered them so much that somebody organized the youth to go and beat up the people in the flea market, because of that song. It's a song that I've always sung on the stage. People like it. I wasn't even mentioning any names. So that song, that's the song that made them very, very angry, but we were not mentioning names. We were just trying to give advice, to say to some people, "Look what happened to Amin. Look what happened to Mobutu. They ended up in foreign countries, running away from their own people, the same people they claimed yesterday that supported that. But look what happened to them? Are you going to do the same thing?" So that was it.
BANNING: Do you think there's anything in this album, "Rise Up", that might make them that angry?
THOMAS: No, I don't think so. I don't think so, because every album of mine has a meeting. They know it. They know it very well. There are songs that will actually disturb their minds, but we are not mentioning names. We are just playing the music, and this is music for our fans. For those who don't want to listen to a music, they can just stop buying our records. They don't play our music on the radio. They don't do it so they can't complain.
BANNING: That's a big difference. From before. But you know that this song "Masoldier ne Mapurisa" was going to get such a reaction?
THOMAS: I was there during Christmas, and I was singing this song, but nobody ever approached me about it. [LAUGHS HEARTILY.] Everybody used to like the song. But when it came out on a record, they started saying a lot of things about it. It's some certain individuals. Those people were organized, they were paid up, and they were just street thugs paid up to do that dirty work.
BANNING: It seems like the kind of thing where if you go back, and back, and back, you will find out that our friends Jonathan Moyo was behind it all.
THOMAS: He was behind it.
BANNING: But I hear he is in trouble. Didn't you want to be in line to replace Mugabe? He would not be good replacement.
THOMAS: But Mugabe he is someone else. He is very tricky. The vice president now is a woman, Joyce Mujuru.
BANNING: That sent a message to Jonathan Moyo. [True.] And another passing some new law. They're getting so sensitive about anyone who would criticize them. About what people say, and journalists write. Do you feel that it's getting even a little hotter even then it was a year ago.
THOMAS: Even if it gets hotter, I will keep on singing. I will keep on singing. I won't stop.
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