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  Thomas Mapfumo
Rise Up (Real World Records, 2006)
This album was originally available in 2005 only as a digital download. My best
efforts notwithstanding (having attempted no downloading before or since), I was
unable to obtain it. Perhaps I should have tried harder, since the disc (which
will be available July 18th in good 'ol CD-encased-in-plastic form) is the Lion
of Zimbabwe at his finest.
Despite being Zimbabwe's most legendary musician,
Mapfumo no longer resides
there. He was a thorn in the government's side even back when Zimbabwe was the
British colony of Rhodesia. During the fight for independence,
Mapfumo put aside
success as a rock and roll cover singer to begin writing and performing songs in
the Shona language, songs rooted in ancestral spirit music that utilized the
thumb-plucked mbira as its primary instrument.
His style, known as chimurenga
("struggle") was basically a contemporary take on tradition, something that for
its time and place was as sincerely simple as it was politically potent. After
independence, the increasingly despotic rule of president Robert Mugabe gave
Mapfumo new and bitter inspiration for his songs of struggle, the lyrics of
which were not always overt but seen as weapons against corruption and tyranny
regardless.
Now living in exile in Eugene, Oregon,
Mapfumo is still making music with his
usual understated intensity on
Rise Up. Many original members of his band the
Blacks Unlimited died as a result of Zimbabwe's AIDS epidemic, but the current
lineup carries on superbly. Their smoldering groove combines mbiras with
sonically similar guitar riffing, conjuring up that entwined Shona spirit sound.
Drums and bass skitter playfully but are never less than totally locked in,
horns and keyboards sweeten and dramatize, and backing vocals that no doubt
sound a lot like the very spirits the mbiras are meant to invoke answer the call
of
Mapfumo's weary bass tones.
Some reggae-like tracks, including the opening "Kuvarira
Mukati," create a meditative solemnity while songs such as "Marudzi Nemarudzi"
and "Hende Baba" have healthy traces of the rock and Afropop leanings that
Mapfumo has revisited during his long career. Like his best works of years past,
this one's themes of street-level hardship resonate because
Mapfumo is still
living them. And like his best work, the music here is beautifully captivating
stuff that grabs your attention like an urgent whisper and keeps you happily
under its spell.
Other Mapfumo articles:
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