New Music From Oliver Mtukudzi on Calabash Music

Ziwere Mukobenhavn

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:01:29 -0600

Mutukudzi and his eight-man band recorded this spirited album in Copenhagen during their 1993 tour of Europe.

Ziwere MuKobenhaven is a dance album with punch but without synthesized drum machines. He utilizes the Bantu African structure of interlocking patterns, thus creating a unified sound collage that is mesmerizing. This is how the Tuku beat becomes a dancing image of the life and spirit of the township. Trance and ecstasy overtake the dancer and he or she is one with the community ritual. The music unites the bush with the city and thus ameliorates the alienation from the roots of culture, a very important matter. His lead vocals, sung in Shona and English, tell the event he's describing and the response of the chorus confirm and enhance what has been sung. Listen to him sing "Kusaziva," which means "Ignorance," and "Hear Me Lord."

It is a circle of song, of community, and mystical unity in the round. A truly mystical album with that South African danceable drive underpinning it all.

Tsivo (Revenge)

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This is Tuku's 47th album and it represents a new beginning of sorts for he and his band, The Black Spirits. It is the very first acoustic studio album that the band has recorded and it is also the first recorded in Tuku's own Samanyanga studio at his home in Norton, Zimbabwe. Everything but the mastering was done in the studio, which took Tuku a few years to build. Over the years he has collected acoustic instruments including an acoustic bass given to him by one of his biggest fans, fellow musician Bonnie Raitt. In a way however, it's like turning the clock back to 1975 when Tuku recorded his very first song 'Stop After Go'. Then it was just him and his guitar and the idea was just to hear his music played on local radio. Almost three decades on, Tuku's music has, like a good wine, improved with age and is played and sold all over the world. Of course Tuku is older - he turned fifty three in September 2005 - but he still maintains the work ethic that has made him one of Africa's leading and most loved musicians.

Vhunze Moto

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The latest from this pioneering Zimbabwe pop musician is a beautiful, brooding bundle of energized melancholy. You can feel Tuku's instinctive good will and optimism struggling to blossom through the gloom of Zimbabwe's forever delayed springtime. From the first track, "Ndakuvara" (I am hurt), there's a wounded edge in his voice. The song is about a man who has been kicked by a young ox he was trying to train. The heavy beat and minor key suggest a special urgency, to the point where you wonder if there isn't a larger message. "I thought this young ox would be like its elders," sings Tuku, "and yet it has ignored its elders." Could this possibly be a comment on the violent gangs of youths who currently terrorize Zimbabwe?

Many of these ten songs raise questions like that. After the massive flap Tuku inspired in Zimbabwe in 2000 when his song "Wasakara" (You're worn out) was taken as a comment on aging President Mugabe, one inevitably listens for hidden messages in his work. But if they're there, they're well hidden indeed. Unlike his peer, Thomas Mapfumo, who blasts Zimbabwe's failed leaders with unvarnished broadsides in his new work, Tuku is disinclined to spell out political intentions. "I sing the songs," he typically says, "and people interpret them as they will." -- Afropop.org Senior Editor Banning Eyre

Paivepo

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Mtukudzi’s style, known as Tuku music, is a unique combination of several elements: South Africa’s hard-driving mbaqanga rhythm, jit—a fast percussive Zimbabwean dance beat—and the gentler, repetitive mbira rhythms of Zimbabwe's Shona people.

Greatest Hits, The Tuku Years, 1998 - 2002

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Tuku Music

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The world famous 1999 release.

Collection 1991 - 1997

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It's amazing how time flies but memories stay alive and fresh

Ndega Zvangu

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Shoko

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Shoko presents a set of Classic Tuku hits.

Collection 1984-1991

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A collection of Tuku favorites from his middle years.

Neria

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Neria is an international award winning film from Zimbabwe, and this is the soundtrack, written by Tuku.

Bvuma/Tolerance

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The Other Side

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A recording of a live performance of both old and new tracks, with both Shona and Ndebele influences, at a Swiss music festival.