BY MICHELINA ANDREUCCI
Women in the Shona context were often viewed as the recipients of spiritual messages; our most notable and noble being Charwe Nehanda.
The liberation struggle is the definition of our history and the foundation of post-colonial Zimbabwe.
Women mbira players in Zimbabwe articulated the First and Second Chimurenga in their musical repertoire.
From Stella Chiweshe, Chiwoniso Mararire to Hope Masike, more than three generations of Mbira players have articulated the Chimurenga Wars fought against colonisation and expressed its significance in liberating Zimbabwe.
As articulated in the lyrics, mbira music composed and performed by women has often been interpreted as vectors for national development.
The enduring artistic legacy and musical memory of the country is highlighted with the poignant
voices of women mbira players. What is striking is the acceptance of the mystical magic of Mbira music in venues as diverse and apart as Norway, Germany, UK, Poland and USA.
A revolutionary monograph of mbira music in this country cannot be written without inscribing the contribution made by the late Stella Chiweshe; an important and major figure to the history of contemporary mbira music of Zimbabwe, who had in the 1970s already predicted the victory of the Second Chimurenga, in her songs. As a woman she single-handedly defended the socio-cultural territory of Zimbabwe’s cultural memory, orature and intangible heritage through her music.
Her music played an explicit functional and philosophical purpose; from commemorative epics
recalling ancient and pre-colonial life exemplary in her song “Chaminuka”, an epic of the famous Shona progenitor medium, to the militant and revolutionary yet, celebratory mbira song “Chave Chimurenga”. Her ceremonial and supplicative music was rooted in Zimbabwe’s sociological, geo-physical, spiritual, political and folk narrative orature.
Mbira player, vocalist and composer, Stella Rambisai Nekati Chiweshe was born in 1946, to a
coventional traditional Shona familyin Mujumi Village, Mhondoro, 45km south-west of Zimbabwe’s capital city Harare. She began performing publicly in her early 20’s, and despite her re-location to Germany, she had a spirited career in Africa as well as America and Europe.
Using a borrowed mbira instrument, Stella Chiweshe recorded her first single “Kasahwa”; In 1974, which launched her career.
The recording went gold in 1975, and introduced her signatory style to the world, characterised by the emotional mystical and socio-religious content which expresses universally relevant sociological and environmental issues.
She was one of the few female players of the instrument (which she learned to play in 1966), when very few women were permitted to play the mbira owing to cultural traditional constraints and its banishment by the colonial settler authorities. In 1979, after a Rhodesian recording company refused to record her mbira music, she initiated the “Earthquake Band”
In 1989 the musician-composer founded “Mother Earth”, a women’s group in Zimbabwe. She also organized an international women’s music festival held in Zimbabwe.
Writing in his book “The Womb of the Song“(© 2009) Dr. Tony Monda wrote of Stella Chiweshe: “ . . . Her music is at once cathartic, lyrical and demanding, seizing the listener‘s emotions and recharging ones soul in a way that sends the audience fortified on their way home . . . Having composed and performed her music in Zimbabwe, Europe and the USA, for 4 decades, she has traversed three generations of women mbira players and continues to produce vital and ever-evolving new musical works even in this digital-dominated age.
. . . Pathos and melancholia are shaped into melodies, prayers and lamentations to the Ancestral Spirits of the country. Her lyrics are written like a prayer. She unobtrusively alters her melodic and soprano rhythmic structure with a flow of high-pitched female ululations. These sounds are typical of cultural ceremonies in Zimbabwe . . . Her music which is both bold and nostalgic, reconnected the newly migrated urban populace of the 1970s in Zimbabwe to their rural roots. The sound of the Mbria negated the physical and spiritual dislocation experienced by the people due to the urban migration of African people in colonial times.
. . . She is the Grand Dame and quintessential contemporary mbira virtuoso. In her strong forceful voice, her songs are punctuated with ululations and stridulant onomatopoeia which range from a baritone to a transfixing mezzo soprano-pitched tremolo of tribal pride to her ancestors. . . . The virtuoso musician-performer is a full performer – animated, entrancing and reverent, she represents the archetype Godmother of the Mbira . . . She often shapes the emotional texture of each word which manifests a presence beyond her voice. Stella Chiweshe’s music demands close listening.”
An energetic performer, unusually spritely at her age, her high-powered performances often induced even the most sedate Western audiences to dance. With her imposing, dignified stature, colourful costumes, intricate Mbira rhythms, vocal vitality and spectacular precision of dancing, the outstanding Stella Chiweshe was the epitome of Mbira virtuoso. Her music shed a universal moral insight into the nature of the people of Zimbabwe.
Breaking gender barriers Stella Chiweshe was a founder member of the original Traditional National Dance Company of Zimbabwe, where she participated as a leading mbira solo player, dancer and actress. In the mid-1980s she played the role of Ambuya Nehanda, Zimbabwe’s renowned national heroine, who was executed in 1896 by the colonial government in a film that earned her great success.
Her music has been the subject of several international concerts, films and books. In 1989, she
starred in “I Am the Future”, a film about a young woman who travels to the big city to escape the fighting in the rural areas of Zimbabwe during its War of Independence. (Monda, TM; “The Womb of the Song“© 2009)
In 1998, Stella Chiweshe created, directed, choreographed and performed in a theatre piece entitled “Chiedza” – light.
Over the years Stella Chiweshe has participated in the WOMAD festivals held in various venues around the world. In WOMAD 1994 Festival in North America where Peter Gabriel also participated, she played solo in front of more than 10,000 spectators At the first “TSAMA Awards” (later named ZIMA), held in 2000, Stella Chiweshe was awarded “Female Lifetime Achievement Award”.
In 2005, through the Ministry of Information, the Zimbabwe Government took over the sponsorship of ZIMA and renamed the awards. It was at the “2005 Zimbabwe Music Silver Jubilee Awards” when she was awarded the Female “Most Outstanding Contribution to the Music Industry –of the Past 25 Years”, and “Best Mbira Artiste of the Past 25 Years”
The psychological consequences of giving stellae preference to international and regional stars at the expense of our own will soon make them inaccessible to Zimbabwean audiences.
Stella Chiweshe was rightly crowned Queen Mother of Zimbabwe’s Mbira Music–the true meaning of an icon.
Dr.Michelina Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher and a published author in her field. For Comments E-mail: linamanucci@gmail.com
About Author
