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Jah Prayzah

Isdore Guvamombe Reflections
Back in the village in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve, elders with cotton tuft hair say a man who goes to sleep with an itchy behind wakes up haunted by smelly fingers. On the eve of this moon, November, the affable month of the evil (the moon of the goat), one of Zimbabwe’s uprising musicians, Mukudzei Mukombe, known to his legion of fans as Jah Prayzah or simply Jah, found himself haunted by his past engagement with a bouncer. The musician had to run for dear life, tall as he is, with scoundrels in hot pursuit and missiles rain- ing.

Zimbabwe is agog with the dreadlocked musician’s running antics that would have made Usain Bolt green with envy. Like village elders say, the day a monkey is destined to die, it finds all trees slippery with dogs in hot pursuit. Not every missile missed him.

Jah, who, according to the narrative, had not paid his former employ his severance package, had earlier on visited the deceased’s homestead empty-handed, not befitting a man of his social stature, whether he owed him or not. For a boy who grew up herding cattle in yonder Uzumba, Jah should have known that. Naturally emotions are high at funerals and certainly one should be hyper-sensitive to mourners.

Does anyone remember the story of Lameck, the catapult man, who also took it upon himself to discipline people at a funeral?

I will not dwell much on Lameck but he indeed reared an ugly culture of funeral violence. I have followed Jah for some time from the time he belted out “Fiona” and broke into the music scene. I appreciate his music because it has some old Chimurenga spice as epitomised by Thomas Mapfumo, especially that shifting tapestry of traditional instruments and the African drum. That is how far I go with him. His vocals are too fast and systematically intoning monotonously forwards, song after song. He needs to slow down and get the tenaciously congruent voice projection, befitting the African beat.

Back to his funeral debacle, the incident smacks of poor judgment on Jah’s part. He paid condolences at the house and if he did not want to invest in this funeral that condolence was enough. They say he went back again and spent time in his car, without talking to anyone. Why? Then they say he went to the burial a little bit too late. Going late happens with legends. They come late in order to be noticed, but that should be after making heroic contributions to the funeral.

Not just to be seen. It becomes some show off. His sixth sense, if he has any, should have told him this is disastrous. Even common sense. But admittedly common sense is no longer common. This villager, the son of a peasant, would have thought that Jah, a man who has fast learnt the art of speedy release of songs through a multifarious array of collaborations – albeit most of them being unnecessary – has learnt various cultures and gained wisdom. It seems he has only music sense and no common sense.

Karitundu, the ageless village autochthon, says the young musician has become big-headed and that he overrates himself. In his own lyrics he sings about such incidents like in “Kumbura Mhute” but maybe it means nothing to him. He is just a conveyor belt of messages and preaches what he does not practise. Not that we condone violence.

The worst thing is that the boy has become a subject of jokes and animation on social media. His image has been shredded to tatters, no matter how Jah and those who like him try to defend him. Do village elders not say that if a cockroach wants to rule over chicken, it must hire a fox as a bodyguard? Jah’s security team has no intelligence at all. They should have seen it coming and avoided it. That means Jah also needs to relook at this security. He has to relook at his conduct.

A pretty face and fine clothes do not make character. Karitundundu weeeeeeeeee!