Band leader and songwriter Comrade Fatso explains: Virtually all tracks on House of Hunger are stinging music based on people’s history of life under President Mugabe and the ruling Zanu (PF) party. Timed to coincide with the electioneering period, the album takes a sharp-eyed look at the lives of the struggling masses, from battered opposition political activists to vendors, jobless youths, poor workers and the homeless.The 12-track album, which also features dub poets Outspoken and Godobori, is an embodiment of an emerging culture of music by young Zimbabwean artists that fuses poetry, hip hop, afro beat, jazz and chimurenga to produce a militant genre of music and dance called toyi-toyi.Chimurenga music is a genre of song popularised by freedom fighters during the days of Zimbabwe’s 1970s war of independence, while toyi-toyi dance was popular with anti-apartheid fighters in South Africa.
Brazen lyrics
House of Hunger takes on a direct political theme, representing the agony of the ordinary Zimbabwean, who besides yearning for food, looks for democracy, justice, equality and freedom.The lyrics in the album, unveiled last week to the news media at the Mannenberg Jazz Club and Theatre, don’t get much more brazen than in the track Wonderful Africa. Here, Comrade Fatso condemns political bootlickers who sing and dance for the powerful…who sing and support the oppressive leaders.Said Comrade Fatso: In Wonderful Africa, I condemn the brainwashed people to stop being made redundant by grovelling over the names of the Mugabes, the Mandelas and the Nkrumahs.I am saying people should move on to another political level and see things from a new perspective and reflect on the real issues obtaining today, rather than being stuck with the past and all its rhetoric. Yes, political change is overdue in Zimbabwe.The name of the album is taken from a novel of the same title penned by the late award-winning Dambudzo Marechera, an eccentric Zimbabwean author whose thrust in most of his writings was the struggle for black emancipation and mental freedom.
Perfect timing
But in Comrade Fatso’s own House of Hunger, the artist sees things differently: While Marechera took on the Rhodesian regime, I am taking on the Zimbabwean regime…we want to break this house of hunger that is Zimbabwe and what better time to launch a political album than in March and just before the crucial elections.Whether House of Hunger will reach it’s a mass audience is in doubt. The State radio and television stations do not play material critical of the ruling class and certainly nothing directed at Mugabe. Major record shops are also hesitant about selling politically motivated music, after security agents believed to be from the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) forced a city centre jazz club, whose owners asked not to be named, to remove from their shelves Hugh Masekela’s Everything Must Change, which calls on President Mugabe to go.Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka can only sell the album clandestinely away from the prying eyes of the State agents.Comrade Fatso, aka Samm Farai Manro, was a finalist in the local Artists for Human Rights Awards last year, along with Leonard Zhakata and Thomas Mapfumo, both artists whose critical music remains banned on state radio and television. – ZimOnline
I am saying people should move on to another political level and see things from a new perspective…Yes, political change is overdue in Zimbabwe.
Sungura Sizzles For Extra Valembe
Sizzling! Extra Valembe perform at the Chibuku Road To Fame.
HARARE
Up-and-coming sungura group Extra Valembe swept the Chibuku Road to Fame awards last weekend, simultaneously launching a sizzling album called Sungura Kompressor.Extra Valembe rocked the concert with the playful, upbeat title track of the six-track album, which also contains tunes such as Toda Rugare, Mamvemve and Mwari Pindirai.The group’s amazing performance garnered the award for best group at the function, sponsored by Delta Corporation. The group can add the trophy to the award they scooped at the Music Cross Roads competition in 2006.The Chinhoyi based-group is fronted by Romio Gasa. We are promising our fans well-polished and exciting albums in the future, he said.Zimbabwe Music Corporation will market the group’s album.
Dancing to Business Success
From raunchy dancer to entrepreneur, Sandra Ndebele is now the proud owner of a restaurant in Bulawayo. The popular dancer says she will eventually quit music to become a full-time businesswoman.
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