In the 1970s, the Rhodesian government banned Thomas Mapfumo’s songs from the radio and later detained him. Twenty years after independence, he was living in exile, this time for criticising the man who had led the liberation war.
Mapfumo, born in 1945, is the creator of chimurenga music, named after the Shona word for struggle. It is the sound most associated with Zimbabwe’s liberation war and its aftermath. Fans call him the Lion of Zimbabwe.
The mbira on guitar
The mbira is a Shona instrument of metal keys mounted on a wooden board, often played inside a gourd resonator. It is central to Shona spiritual ceremonies. Mapfumo and his guitarists, including Jonah Sithole, translated its interlocking patterns to electric guitar, while the drums reproduced the rhythms of traditional music. Mapfumo also brought actual mbiras into the band.
The result sounded both new and ancient: electric, danceable music that carried the spirit of Shona tradition.
Songs of struggle
In the 1970s, during the war against Ian Smith’s white minority government, Mapfumo sang in Shona about the struggle, using proverbs and coded language that his audience understood. The authorities banned his records from state radio and detained him in 1979. He was held for about three months.
Zimbabwe became independent in April 1980, and chimurenga songs were the soundtrack of the new country’s first years.
Turning on the government
As the economy collapsed and corruption grew, Mapfumo turned his criticism on the government of Robert Mugabe. Songs such as “Corruption” and later “Mamvemve”, about a country in tatters, angered officials. His music was again kept off the airwaves. Around 2000, he moved to the United States, settling in Eugene, Oregon, and spent years in exile.
The Blacks Unlimited
His band, the Blacks Unlimited, toured the world, and albums such as Chimurenga Singles and Shumba spread his music abroad. Many musicians, including the Bhundu Boys and Oliver Mtukudzi, emerged from the same Zimbabwean scene.
Return
After Mugabe was removed from power in 2017, Mapfumo returned to perform in Harare in 2018, to a huge crowd of fans who had waited years to see him at home.
Legacy
Chimurenga showed how a traditional instrument could shape modern music. It also showed that a musician could stay loyal to the struggle while refusing loyalty to whoever held power.
Mapfumo sang against the Rhodesians and then against the liberators. In both cases, the people he was singing for were the same.
