I recently spent three weeks doing music research in Zimbabwe. Near the end of my stay, a music journalist at The Daily News--the country's feisty new independent newspaper--asked me to write something about my impressions of Harare over the years, and especially now. The piece that follows ran in the paper on April 25, 2001. As Afropop Worldwide has put a new batch of Zimbabwean music on the airwaves over the past year, we thought this piece would make an appropriate soapbox essay. We look forward to your reactions.

Banning Eyre

I am an American writer and guitarist who first came to Harare in January, 1988, to do field work for Afropop Worldwide, a U.S. radio series on African music. By then, I was already a fan of Zimbabwe's guitar-based pop music, from Thomas Mapfumo to Bhundu Boys, Four Brothers, and Devere Ngwena Jazz band. I had found the recordings fresh and spontaneous, but Harare's vigorous live music scene was nothing short of a revelation to me. My colleague, Sean Barlow, and I taxied all over the city, catching two or three live acts a night at venues like the Parkdale Hotel, the Nyamutamba Hotel in Chitungwiza, and Club Hideout. To us, these hard-drinking, slightly rough venues exuded the optimism and spirit of a young nation full of hope and promise, all of that palpable in the music and the no-holds-barred dancing that fairly shook those old beerhalls. I fell in love with Zimbabwe immediately, and I knew I'd be back.

I am now here on my fourth visit. I first returned in 1992, having befriended Thomas Mapfumo and his band and written about them and other Zimbabwean musicians in various publications. Musicians like Jonah Sithole, Chartwell Dutiro, Ephraim Karimaura, and more recently Bezil and Ngoni Makombe and Joshua Dube embraced me as a musician, and effectively made me part of the band. In 1997 and '98, I came back to Harare to play guitar with the Blacks Unlimited and gather material for an eventual book on Mapfumo and chimurenga music. I learned the art of mbira guitar and added to it elements from my other musical lives. Some of my efforts have even found their way onto Mapfumo recordings, such as "Ndiani Waparadza Musha," "Moto Uyo," and "Mangoma." But before earning that honor, I attended six months of Blacks Unlimited rehearsals, jam sessions, meetings and social occasions, and some 75 shows all over the country, staying to the bitter end every time--and it could be bitter, with fights, thieving tsotsis, and women selling themselves to drunken lost souls in a milieu where AIDS could easily claim one in every three lives. My deepened, darkened view of Harare now touched me more than ever, because I was moving at one of the nation's soul centers, the living reality of a band whose spiritual power over people's lives is unique in the world.

During my present, brief, stay here, Thomas Mapfumo is living in my own country because, he says, this one is "no longer safe for him and his family." Mukanya's unfortunate absense raises many questions and emotions, and I've had the chance to puzzle these things over with a fascinating array of Zimbabwean writers, musicians, DJs, civil servants, fans, and citizens in recent days. When all is said and done, the main impression that lingers for me is Zimbabwe's astounding failure to profit from its great musical potential. Thomas Mapfumo and Oliver Mutukudzi should be millionaires, household names around the world. Their band members should be living in nice houses and driving comfortable cars, generating still more economic activity. Creative, well-equipped producers and recording companies should be competing to see who can best serve an impressive crop of lesser known artists, who instead continue to labor in Harare's sports diners, beerhalls and nightclubs. Zimbabweans should be able to turn on their radios and choose from a selection of 10 or 20 radio stations, featuring a broad array of local jazz, pop, and traditional music, as well as international sounds. It might surprise Harareans to learn that this is the norm in most cities in the world today. Government should be wallowing in the foreign currency proceeds of a music industry gifted with originality and exceptional talent.

Instead, brutal "luxury" taxes persist on all musical tools of trade, making it all but impossible to equip a band, nightclub or recording studio. Music is neglected in the schools, departing from one of the evil Rhodesian regime's few redeeming policies. An effective record company monopoly stifles the dreams of innovative young artists. And local radio lingers back in the 1950s, with urban citizens actually believing that four radio stations is adequate in the 21st century. In dusty, underdeveloped Bamako, Mali, there are over 50. In New York City, you can't touch the dial without finding a new station. No airplanes have crashed as a result. Meanwhile in Harare last Friday night, I wanted to hear some good local music. I had one choice, and for nearly an hour, it was just talk!

The Minister of Information is asking for 75% local content. Bravo! But at the same time, his government is doing everything in its power to prevent local musicians and musical entrepreneurs from creating such content. Let others rant about the land issue. The imbalance between Zimbabwe's top-notch musicality and the appalling lethargy of its musical institutions is the issue that stirs my passions.

I've heard lots of blame for all this ascribed to government, musicians, the musicians' (non) union, DJs, the media, the National Arts Council, commercial interests, foreign competition, and on and on. There's blame to go around, but this foreigner would like to sound a wake-up call to all concerned parties: Zimbabwe is sitting on a goldmine! Mbira is no longer Shona village music. It's a worldwide cultural phenomenon, an opportunity almost entirely unexploited by the nation that started it. After long battles, Thomas Mapfumo, Oliver Mtukudzi, Andy Brown and a few others are making international class recordings, little thanks to any Zimbabwean institutions, which have mostly just slowed down this development with obstacles. But these stars represent just the tip of the iceberg. Drop the duties, open the airwaves and recording industry to real competition, teach musical arts, celebrate and promote your amazing musical talent! Free musicians to succeed and just watch the foreign currency roll in. I believe that Zimbabwe's music is a resource greater than tobacco, maize, asbestos, and even the gold and diamonds that first drew Rhodes and his greedy crew to this blessed land.

Zimbabwe is not the hopeful country I first visited thirteen years ago. But I still have hope for it. I close with a few positive signs I've seen on this visit. Shamiso Records, a visionary, young recording company, is going against the odds with a bold plan to create genuine youth music in Zimbabwe, something the sleepy recording giant(s) seem scarcely to have contemplated. Capital Radio has made a bold, if failed, attempt to break the near silence of the Zimbabwean airwaves, and just maybe, I'll be able to dial up local music the next time I spend a Friday night in Harare. Oliver Mtukudzi is reaching out to musicians from neighboring countries and forging a tradition of collaboration all too rare in African music. Blacks Unlimited veterans are creating great new bands to continue the movement Thomas Mapfumo started, notably guitar giant Joshua Dube's Shangara Jive, and mbira innovator Bezil Makombe's Movement. For all the urbanite talk about how tired Zimbabwe's sungura music is, Alick Macheso delivered more spirit and soul than interntional star Papa Wemba at the Convention Center on March 24. But most of all, despite fuel shortages, poverty, political violence, crime, and AIDS, the musicians that Harareans can barely find on their airwaves still play the local nightspots with dedication and excellence few cities in the world can match.

After that Convention Center show, I got back to the experience that first sold me on this town--musical club hopping. I dropped in on members of the Blacks Unlimited playing an informal gig under an unfamiliar name at the Londoner in Strathaven--they were preparing to rejoin their leader in America the next month. Here were young musicians like Chris Muchabaiwa and Zivai Guveya cranking out spot-on covers of Mapfumo chimurenga songs that first rocked this land before they were even born. The group was also playing great compositions of their own, and to a mixed-race audience dancing and enjoying in a spirit that represents the very best of what this country's liberation struggle envisioned. All these things tell me that whatever new struggles Zimbabwe faces, its musicians can still provide a way out, just as soon as the powers that be are ready to listen. Banning Eyre