Album Review: Thomas Mapfumo - Zimbabwe Mozambique
A review of Zimbabwe Mozambique, Thomas Mapfumo's seventh album.
I'm catching up on a few selections from Thomas Mapfumo's sizable discography and will be posting brief reviews now and then.
Thomas Mapfumo's seventh album, Zimbabwe Mozambique, was released in 1988. It followed Mr. Music, from 1985. Both albums contain five tracks and nearly 40 minutes of music and straddle the fence between EP and LP. Both are available from Global Press Music for a very reasonable price.
The title track kicks things off and goes on for nearly ten minutes. For my money, it could have kept going. I'll borrow some background from writer Percy Zvomuya's 2023 article on Mapfumo's retirement:
Other notable albums include the 1987 Zimbabwe-Mozambique, a dirge for the recently slain Mozambican president, Samora Machel. The title track Zimbabwe-Mozambique is a sonic triptych that begins with martial cacophony of the cymbal hit, before it slows down to the slow riddims of rock-steady tune, then gathers speed, fired up by ska-like horn sounds, before concluding with a drum-based jit sound.
Arranged together with the late mbira player and saxophone player, Chartwell Dutiro (a man who, like Mapfumo, had mastered the two traditions of Africa and the West), it’s as close to perfection as a song can get. Send arms to the people of Mozambique and Namibia, Mapfumo cries out on the song, urging Africa and the rest of the world to support the besieged government of Machel’s successor, Joaquim Chissano, then fighting an apartheid South African-backed insurgency; and Namibia, then occupied by South Africa.
My command of the Shona language is weak (as in nearly non-existent), so it wasn't until I heard "Ndave Kuenda" and "Serevende" that I realized that I'd encountered them long ago on The Best Of Thomas Mapfumo - Chimurenga Forever, a 1995 collection that was my introduction to his music. The latter proceeds at a very deliberate pace with guitar and mbira weaving an almost hypnotic web. It's a grabber.
Next up is "Joyce," another winner. It's much more upbeat than it's predecessor, with an almost buoyant, optimistic feel. Guitars, vocal and backing vocals carry the proceedings and then, as so often happend in Mapfumo's songs, the horn section drops in and drives things home. Another grabber.
Ditto for "Nhamo," which I chose as one of the songs in our most recent Pick of the Week feature. As I noted, "Some Thomas Mapfumo songs just seem to glide. That sounds like a weird way to describe music, but there it is. ‘Nhamo' is one of them and it goes on my personal Best Of Thomas Mapfumo."