MUSIC-ZIMBABWE: Traditional Beats Fight for Recognition

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jorgen Andersson

HARARE, Jul 9 1996 (IPS) - Amid the elegant African decor in Harare’s Sheraton hotel, guests find their seats as soft music from the marimba fills the air.

The bar manager whispers to the band’s agent who signals to her young troupe. Immediately, the dancers react with faster and more sensual movements. Here, the guests stay glued to their seats, but at less upmarket venues, the audiences would normally also take the floor to dance and sing with the band.

Portia Gwanzura, manager of the Hohodza band, says that they aim to protect and spread Zimbabwean tradition at all levels of society. “To do that one must not be afraid of playing in all kinds of places. If somebody out there wants us, we will go to Europe as well,” she says hopefully.

The frenetic pace which now keeps the 12-member Hohodza traditional marimba and dance band busy five days per week, is a major turn around for a band that seemed destined for collapse when it was formed four years ago.

Hohodza was created partly as a hobby and partly as a source of income by a group of youths who had just become part of the roughly 300,000 annual school leavers who compete for just 30,000 jobs in Zimbabwe.

“You know some guys who don’t work will end up being thugs, they’ll end up robbing people. But if you have something to do, you don’t have the time to steal and things like that. So I think this band has helped a lot of us,” explains Enock Kamhiriri, a lead marimba player.

However, at first they had little success, as Kamhiriri tells IPS: “It was difficult to get venues (at which to perform) and we had a manager who let the members starve.”

Then along came Portia Gwanzura, a flamboyant businesswoman in her mid-twenties, who learned traditional dances growing up in a rural area north of Harare, but found in adulthood that the music she preferred was ever giving way to guitar-based pop.

Gwanzura became Hohodza’s manager, an unusual role in a music world dominated by men. “When I started they didn’t take me seriously, they took me like a joke. They didn’t think we were going anywhere. But I have proved to be very good,” she says.

“There is no difference between a female and a male manager as long as work is going on. As long as she can do the job I don’t mind having a female manager,” says Kamhiriri.

Although some members are still learning, most of the Hohodza crew learnt traditional music and dance at primary school and after four years of training, marketing and performing, the band is now professional and full-time with an album on the way.

The few that once had other jobs have even left them, which is rare in this country where musicians often earn little from their profession.

A key element of the band’s success is their versatility, as they can perform dances from other African countries — even the outrageous Zairean kwasa kwasa which government has slammed as liable to corrupt the young.

Another point of strength is the band’s ability to adapt to audiences’ expectations.

“Sometimes in bars and nightclubs the traditional dances have to be replaced by a more sexy style. That’s what men like, but I don’t think women like it. They think we will take their men,” explains Ednah Muchinyu, a dancer.