By Dr. Tony Michel Monda
The name Alick Macheso has dominated Sungura music since 1996.
Macheso created a new form of performance and delivery of sungura music that combined music, dance, drama and audience participation during his live shows.
The celebrated sungura virtuoso Alick Macheso has improvised the bass guitar to [normally] lead guitar patterns.
His dazzling technique, his numerous live performances to noisy, enthusiastic crowds singing along to his music, is indicative of the genius’ popularity.
His bass playing antics with a jersey, a single thread, or with his guitar on his back, and his self choreographed dances such as Borrowdale, Razor wire, Kangaroo, Kochekera and Zora Butter, always delights an enthusiastic receptive live crowd.
Alick Macheso’s musical career began as a Bass guitarist with the Khiama Boys during the mid-1980s, at a time when the newly independent nation of Zimbabwe was still savouring its freedom.
A carefree time of bell-bottom trousers, floral ‘Hawaii’ shirts, Afro hairstyles and big sunglasses. Here, he performed together with System Tazvida (Rhythm guitar), Nicholas Zakaria (Lead guitar), Silas Chakanyuka (Drums) and Zakaria Zakaria (Sub Rhythm guitar) prior to forging a successful career with his own band.
Macheso’s guitar riffs and stage antics demonstrate the freedom of Sungura music where improvisation is not restricted to words or conventional instrumental music language, but has the possibilities of extending to a richer more varied sound, free of limitations.
With Macheso Sungura music becomes the art of rousing emotions through a combination of sound and dance moves.
Macheso’s Sungura not only delights the ear, but it exalts the mind; eliciting sensory responses beyond the ordinary; transporting his audiences towards infinite regions that stir evoke dreams of an imagined utopian future.
Uninhibitedly a gifted showman, Macheso’s musical style tends towards Angolan/Congolese guitar.
Macheso is above all a guitarist, composer, performer and dancer-choreographer with abundant vitality, charisma, and charm. These qualities are much valued in the growth of music and its audiences.
With much of Macheso’s work, the variation of guitar notes, patterns and lyrics give musical substance to his Sungura sound, preventing monotony and acknowledging the flexibility of the Sungura music genre.
His Sungura compositions are normally dictated by the content the musician articulates. The music is open to improvisation and re-invention. Rarely, if at all, is Sungura music created as purely instrumental music.
Much of Macheso’s music uses the human voice – instruments, words and notes to add effective auditory colour to Sungura music.
The power and quality of Macheso’s lyrics in HIS sungura songs lie in the precision of their word
setting, rather than their melodic charm.
Macheso often explores sound for its own sake – giving artistic mystery to Sungura music. His solo guitar riffs have an independent life and auditory memorability. Using strophic metrical form in his music, Macheso’s style is Unorthodox, yet instantly catchy. His signature sound explorations with bass guitar have become part of his changeable
inventive artistry and musical style.
A gifted and prolific musician, Macheso has enriched the repertoire of Sungura music in all aspects – from recording to stage to performance.
A rare consummate artist, he is a composer/actor/musician/ choreographer and dancer. The video entitled Ngaibake – Light It Up, in collaboration with Freeman demonstrates his multi-faceted artistry
Macheso’s music has a dominating melodic signature base line where the audiences instantly recognise the tune. Against his cameo solo bass lines the rest of the music emerges.
This is a feature that has distinguished the musician and makes his sound popular and memorable.
Sungura is an adaptable music genre that changes its themes, characters and styles according to the socio-cultural circumstances prevailing at the time.
The music embodies the realities of local culture with local colour, unexpected effects in sound, and depths of passion, dreams and aspirations; and questions of the meaning of our existence; particularly existential questions posed by the common man.
The lyrical meanings and effects of these common urban social themes inspire great spontaneity of style and expression.
With Macheso, the celebrated Sungura virtuoso, we can hear and see how expressive the language of an instrumental guitar can be in the hands of a competent player.
For Macheso music is more than self-expression; it is a language of sounds approving and reflecting moral goodness.
In many instances, he fuses different musical ideas, each instrument with independent rhythm, tempo and key that surprisingly produce his signature sound.
Liberated from traditional methods of guitar playing, this unique artist’s creative work should be acknowledged as a major influence in the Sungura genre.
The narratives of Sungura represent Zimbabwe’s peri-urban life of the high-density townships with love songs, socio-cultural experiences and Shona morals often espoused in the lyrics.
Given it is a musician’s duty as a member of society to speak to, or for, his fellow human beings, Macheso should be singled out for his morally upright musicianship and consistant creativity and its effects on future generations is a merit Macheso deserves.
His music embodies qualities of lightness and humour; sorrow and contemplation and at times, purely “Joy”. These qualities are to be valued in the music of our time.
At his best, Alick Macheso is known to envelope an entire audience in sound – mesmerised by his music, voice, lyrics, dance antics, and stage performances.
Possessing both, musical skill and humanity, Macheso is demonstratively a musician of far wider range than he is credited. There is no doubting his sincerity and stature as the King of Sungura. His intellectual and musical strength commands respect and deserves closer study.
Dr. Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA in Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a practicing visual artist, musician and critic. He is founding president of ZAAC. Contact him on 0773 805 700 or email on tonymichelmonda93@gmail.comor tonym.MONDA@gmail.com
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