PHOTO ESSAY

Rebel Yells

A protest music mixtape

By Matthew McKinnon

August 12, 2005

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Thomas Mapfumo, the "Lion of Zimbabwe." Photo Getty Images/Matt Cardy.

Disaster, Thomas Mapfumo and Blacks Unlimited

(Chimurenga Explosion, 1999)

Before Mapfumo, who cut his teeth playing Otis Redding and Elvis Presley covers as a teenager, all of Zimbabwe’s homegrown music was made using rhythms that had been passed down for generations. The “Lion of Zimbabwe” was first to break this tradition, creating his own style of music — chimurenga, which means struggle — to accompany lyrics that called for the violent overthrow of his country’s white minority rule. Mapfumo was dispatched to prison camp on charges of subversion in 1977. He arranged his release by agreeing to a special concert for his country’s political leaders, but then played them only his most indignant material.

Mapfumo formed Blacks Unlimited after Zimbabwe’s 1978 independence. The band’s celebration songs turned to protest after Robert Mugabe was elected prime minister in 1980. (Mugabe later dissolved Zimbabwe’s prime minister’s office, and declared himself its president). Disaster, a dance number that combined a traditional rhythm with reggae and chimurenga, repeated simple chants to put its point across. Mapfumo, translated from Shona, sang, “People, there is trouble in the nation / There is great trouble in the home.”

The Lion of Zimbabwe, after years of harassment from Mugabe and his minions, moved to Oregon in the late ’90s.