Thomas “Mukanya” Tafirenyika Mapfumo (born 1945) – Zimbabwe’s Chimurenga musician affectionately known as “The Lion of Zimbabwe”

Thomas Mapfumo Profile

By Kamangeni Phiri

He struts across the stage in a trance-like stance like the leader of a troop of baboons, singing in his trademark deep voice before a packed hall at a hotel in Kwekwe.

The year is 1998 and the musician is a prime Thomas Tafirenyika Mapfumo, popularly known to his legion of fans by his totem Mukanya, which means baboon.

Mapfumo’s enthralling and yodelling voice booming out of the six huge speakers in front of the stage gives him a mystic aura as he sings Mvura Ngainaye, a favourite of many at his shows.

Suddenly he kneels behind one of the speakers, as if doing sound check, while he continues singing.

When the backing vocalists joins in, Mukanya stands up and turns his back to the audience and solemnly faces them. This time he assumes the role of a choir master as he coordinates the band.

The fans equally love Mukanya’s “choir master theatrics” which ironically are usually subtle rebukes of band members who might be singing or playing an instrument off key.

He turns again to face the audience smiling and shouts, “Yahwee!” and the fans go into frenzy as they immediately respond, “Ndakuona!!!”

The chimurenga music icon then goes on to give a minute long snippet of his nimble footedness in traditional dancing while shaking his long dread locks. He stops abruptly and lifts his right hand and smiles again. The fans love every minute of it and become hysterical as the chants, “Mukanya! Mukanya! Mukanya!”

This is a typical vintage Dr Mapfumo show. The song Mvura Ngainaye, an appeal for rains which the chimurenga music guru often performs at the closing stages of most of his live shows around 3AM, opens with some heavy mbira sounds before modern guitars and drums join in.

Mukanya’s live shows are usually all-night gigs modelled along the same lines with traditional events meant to conjure spirits, known locally as biras.

His staggering gait, an imitation of the baboon, has over the years, become a trademark stage work of his illustrious career spanning over five decades.

Mukanya rarely dances but who can fault him if a mere rise of his hand can send the crowd into frenzy?

He is known as an improviser, perfectionist and music arranger per excellence.

His distinctive barringtone voice, long dread-locks and world class performances on the international arena has earned him the moniker Lion of Zimbabwe. Mukanya is also known as Hurricane Hugo, Mr Music, Tafirenyika and Gandanga.

But who exactly is this living legend that fans identify with so many sobriquets?

Thomas Mapfumo was born on 2 July 1945, in Marondera to Janet Chinhamo of Chihota and Tapfumaneyi Makore of Mupinyuri village in Guruve. However, his parents never stayed together and Janet went on to get married to John Kashesha Mapfumo.

Mukanya’s birth name was Michael Munhumumwe and was only named Thomas when he obtained his national identity card. Munhumumwe was his mother’s stepfather.

The chimurenga guru’s official name is Thomas Chikawa.

“Chikawa was my uncle, my maternal grandmother’s brother. He used his name to facilitate the processing of my ID. That is how I became Thomas Chikawa. I have not changed the name since then. It is the name that is in national records,” said Mukanya in an interview with The Herald, a Zimbabwean daily.

Thomas spent his formative years in rural areas heading cattle, goats and donkeys as a boy while living with his maternal grandparents in Chihota area.

It was his grandparents who laid the foundation of Mukanya’s traditional beat and love for folk songs, the bedrock of chimurenga music.

They exposed their grandson to a lot of traditional music. The grandparents were very much into traditional music as there was a lot of music and drumming at their homestead.

Mukanya then moved to urban Marandellas, now Marondera, to join his mother and stepfather.  The family moved to Harare where Thomas commenced his musical apprenticeship as a raw teenager.   His stepfather, John Kashesha Mapfumo, treated him as one of his own kids.

He was referred to as Thomas Mapfumo and the name became popular in the neighbourhood and among relatives. Mukanya had to use that name when he started music in the early ‘70s. Mapfumo and his half siblings were introduced to church life by their parents through a “no church no tea” policy.

While still at school, Mukanya got his first break to perform music before an audience with a quartet known as the Zoot Brothers in Mabvuku. He was to sing some rock and roll.   At the age of 10, Mapfumo’s family moved to Mbare where he hooked up with Kenneth and Laina Mataka who were known as the Mataka family in entertainment circles. Mataka family was very famous and had a son, Edison, a genius guitarist and piano player. Mukanya and Edison later formed their own group, The Cosmic Four Dots. The group had Bernard Marriot, who played for Dynamos and earned the nickname, Magitari. Mukanya and his group would play cover versions of Western music, especially rock and roll. He then moved to the Springfields in 1966 with whom he recorded some songs at the then Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation. In 1973, Daram Karanga headhunted Mukanya for the formation of the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band in Mhangura. It was with the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band that Mukanya started playing his traditional beat, transferring the mbira sound onto the electric guitar. He then returned to Harare in 1974 and formed the Black Spirits in 1975 working together with his friend and confidante, the late lead guitar genius, Jonah Sithole.

Mapfumo disbanded the Black Spirits in 1977 and formed the Acid Band in the same year. It was with this band that he recorded his first album, Hokoyo. In 1978 Mapfumo disbanded the Acid Band and reunited with Jonah Sithole again. The two formed the Blacks Unlimited, a band that Mukanya still works with today, four decades later.

Thomas Mapfumo’s Chimurenga music has taken him to different parts of the world where he has played before audiences of all races.

Mukanya is married to Verna and the couple has three kids, son Tapfumaneyi and daughters,   Chiedza and Matinyanya.

The musical icon has three daughters from his previous two marriages, Charity (late), Janet and Charmaine who are in the UK.

Mukanya’s songs are hard hitting, pro-poor and anti-establishment, a development that has cost his works airplay at most Zimbabwean radio and television stations. He argues that it’s not ideal for musicians to sing about love in a world infested with various social ills like corruption, murder, poverty and unemployment.

“I think it’s good to sing about love but not in a situation like ours. Sometimes you have to forget about romantic love and think about the important (agape) love among people. That is the love I recognise myself. I don’t think romantic love is very important in my life. People are killing one another because there is no love among them,” he told online TV personality, Gary Thompson in his programme, One on One.

Mukanya regards himself as a former freedom fighter and describes his music as a “weapon against oppression and a voice of the people”.

“We speak for the poor people who cannot speak for themselves. Our music is like their voice, the people speak through the music. We are not afraid. I spent some time in prison because of my forthrightness and the type of music I play. That was nothing really because I also regard myself as a freedom fighter,” said Mukanya.

In his illustrious carreer Mukanya has won several local, regional and international awards. He was awarded an Honorary Master of Arts degree by the University of Zimbabwe in 2000 and in January 2001 he received an honorary doctorate degree from Ohio State University in the US. The First Banking Corporation awarded him Personality of the Century – confirmation of Mapfumo’s ability to transcend racial and cultural barriers. In March 2001, Mukanya won the AFIM’s Best World Contemporary CD Award for his 2000 release Chimurenga Explosion.

US citizen, Banning Eyre, a close friend and Mukanya’s biographer said audiences are usually captivated by the mystic mystery that he brings on the stage which invokes spirits.

Eyre first met Thomas in 1988 in Zimbabawe while doing research for Afropop Worldwide and the two have been together ever since.

During the war of liberation, Mukanya’s music became a double-edged sword, fighting both a political war and a cultural one. Culturally, local languages like Shona had been so stigmatized by the Rhodesian education system while missionaries saw Shona religion as evil.

Mukanya’s music became a vehicle of redeeming culture.

Mukanya, who shared the stage with the late king of reggae, Bob Marley, at the 1980 Independence ceremony could have played a role to the birth of the Zimdancehall genre through his 1985 reggae mega hit, Mugarandega, which was heavily influenced by the growing popularity of reggae in Africa back then. He later released Corruption (1988) and Set the People Free (1998) which all had a reggae inclination.

The man is aging like fine wine. At the ripe age of 76, Mukanya has lost none of his sting is he still composes hard hitting songs and remains critical of oppressive states while at his adopted home, Oregon in the United States.  In 2018, Mukanya, who was aged 73 then, performed for five hours none stop before a record crowd of more than 20, 000 people, at his homecoming show held at the Glamis Arena in Harare.  He was home for the first time in 14 years.

 

Ends