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David Mungoshi Shelling the Nuts
Today I am doing a medley of thoughts, tributes and experiences. The young woman who was the MC at the Miss World Zimbabwe pageant this last Saturday kept making uninformed remarks about Alick Macheso and his music, completely ignoring the fact that the sophisticated audience that she was hostess to were, in fact, relating very well to the beat of the king of sungura.

Well-groomed ladies and gentlemen doing the “Zora butter” dance on the dance floor and in the aisles were testimony to this.

Macheso began his slot with an instrumental medley of some of his hit songs including the iconic Madhawu before launching into a highly-polished live version of Shedia.

But, the MC went and spoiled it all with her inane remarks.

However, no one paid any heed to any of her misplaced comments.

She probably doesn’t know what a medley is and is also probably quite blissfully unaware of the power of connotation. What, for example, is she indirectly saying about the organisers of the pageant whose judgment it was that Macheso could add value to the occasion?

And boy oh boy, did he do it in style or did he!

You should have seen Jonas Kasamba the chanter in his full element with shades and a glittering jacket.

All in all it was a virtuoso performance by Alick Macheso.

He effortlessly gave Miss World Zimbabwe the ambience that it needed and his combination with South Africa’s Ringo Madlingozi was a stroke of genius.

It goes without saying that our estranged MC had nothing to say about Ringo and his set.

She should have allowed the audience to enjoy the show without her biased comments about fictitious 25-minute songs. There is no gripe. I am just telling it as it was, from where I was standing.

Now to other matters.

Death, that Grim Reaper, has been at it again.

After losing Comrade Chinx and Abel Sithole, we find ourselves shedding tears for Mr Ray Chikapa Phiri of Stimela and Graceland fame.

In some ways good artistes never die because their works outlive them.

While Shakespeare’s Mark Antony famously said, “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones,” we would not want to wish that upon Ray, that inimitable superstar, the man who could walk like a baboon on stage and turn the act into a piece of veritable art in a delectable dance routine that endeared him to countless audiences.

I wish now to hazard an explanation for Ray’s unique dance. Being Africans, all of us, and particularly south of the equator, we hold our totems dear. In my view, Ray Phiri was obviously celebrating his totem on stage. “Phiri” is Chewa for “Ncube/Shoko”. Thus, like Thomas Mapfumo, Ray Phiri was also a Mukanya. Very creative indeed!

I am betting my last dollar that not too many people know what I am going to say now to show why Ray Chikapa Phiri was perhaps the metaphorical midwife of Afro-Pop in Southern Africa.

Roundabout the year 1970-1971 a South African group called “The Wavelets”, with Jacob Radebe (later known as Mpharanyana) on lead vocals and Ray Phiri on lead guitar, hit the airwaves with a phenomenal hit song, “So dull without her”. This song was, almost immediately after, followed by the soulful “Mary” sung in SeSotho.

The Wavelets morphed into Mpharanyana and The Cannibals for whom Ray Phiri composed the song “Highland Drifter”. Together they did “Mmema Thabo” — a highly danceable song in which Mpharanyana eulogises horse meat.

In The Wavelets, Ray Phiri and Jacob Radebe set the tone and the pace for the direction that Afro-Pop was going to take in the region. Such bands as the Hurricanes and The Question Marks of South Africa were informed by the early efforts of The Wavelets.

Even the experimental group Harare (initially called The Drive) built upon What Ray Phiri and Radebe had done. Harare became Harare after doing a well appreciated show in Harare.

This was the group that spawned Sipho Hot Stix Mabuse the ace drummer.

After the group Harare had been to Harare, Manu Kambani and Dr Footswitch began coming into their own, starting with a cover version of a Harare song.

Thereafter they recorded the hit song “Shumaira” whose distinctive lead guitar was captivating.

Rock n Roll was the in-thing and rock bands began sprouting everywhere.

The names of the bands of the day were eye-catching: Gipsy Caravan of “Chiutsiutsi” fame, the band in which Nicholas Kambani, Manu’s younger brother initially played; Eye Q fronted by Cuthbert Maziva on lead vocals and lead guitar, the band that gave us the song “Please the Nation”; the Pied Pipers of “I’m a Country Boy” fame with the inimitable vocals of the immensely-gifted Gideon Neganji; Eye of Liberty, a Bulawayo band promoted by Webster Shamu, the DJ turned politician, recorded “Calling Your Name”, a big hit.

Bulawayo also had a band called Wells Fargo to which Handsome Mabhiza belonged.

Ray Phiri was among those who defined the musical tastes of the age in our region and continued to do so decades into his career.

This was at about the time that Paul Ngozi and The Ngozi Family of Zambia were making waves with their hard rock songs, including “Size 10, Danger Boots”. Ngozi was a guitar man in the mould of Manu Kambani.

He could make that guitar of his do things you did not think possible and the accounts of his antics on stage were quite colourful.

Both men were worthy disciples of Jimi Hendrix.

Oliver Mtukudzi’s song “What is a Hero?” asks pertinent questions.

The South Africans gave Ray Phiri a big send-off like the hero he was and will continue to be, given his musical genius. Ray Phiri’s influence is acknowledged worldwide.

Paul Simon’s career was in limbo until he conceived the Graceland idea in which Ray Phiri was a key player.

There was no way he could successfully have blended his music into African rhythms without the able assistance of people like Ray Phiri.

Now that Ray Phiri has passed on Paul Simon does not want to know him.

Lesson to be learnt: we must choose those we do collaborations with, with care. Artistes can be national or provincial heroes, as well as role models.

But then these things do happen. In the West you hear parents defending their children as if they are more special than other children around the world.

In our part of the world we are guided by the existential philosophy of Ubuntu/hunhu according to which everyone is connected to everyone else. Accordingly, all people are the same and that includes children.

A Shona proverb, Mugoni wepwere ndeasinayo (Only people with no children of their own think they can shape the children to their satisfaction).

In essence what this means is that even those children from respected homes will often be caught doing things that make their mothers cry.

This proverb is also complemented by another which says, nyoka yemvana yakazvara muroyi nembavha (the woman bore witches and thieves).

I thought of these things when I saw the picture of a half-naked young woman/girl being paraded down the street by jeering crowds.

There will be those who will lament the lack of morals among today’s youth and are quick to judge and to pronounce the inviolate nature of their own offspring.

The picture has probably gone viral on social media.

We need to be less pretentious about our limitations and accept the fact that none of our children are little angels.

Champion Jack Dupree, the bluesman, in his song “Reminiscing”, prefaces his performance with the wry observation: To think of the things that we go through for nothing in the world.

He makes you wonder about all the things that we say matter to us: love, friends, family, work, war, status and so on.

Do all these things really matter? The answers we give to these questions determine how we conduct ourselves on all fronts.

I can’t help wondering about some of the things we hear on almost a day to day basis. It appears that the age of the gigolo or kept man is once again with us.

Some men have no skin on their faces (Shona expression for shamelessness). They do things that are quite unthinkable. Imagine defrauding widows of their wealth and making them forget about their children all for the love of a man without principles.

Everywhere, the children of dead fathers are crying.

Life goes sour for them as their mothers spare no effort to please the men they have become obsessed with.

And what kind of men are these who have no compunction? There does not seem to be anything they will not do to get their hands on a fortune that another man left.

David Mungoshi is a writer, social commentator, retired teacher and editor.