From the Archive: Influences - Zimbabwe Frontline (1988)

A look back at an influential African music compilation.

As our archive keeps growing, some of our older pieces might have gotten lost in the shuffle. Every now and then we'll dig in and find some highlights and revisit them. Here's one now.

I'm looking at the inner sleeve of the Zimbabwe Frontline album, released on the Earthworks label, in 1988. It occurs to me that there are several African music albums listed there that helped spark my interest in African music.

There's Jive Explosion, by the Soul Brothers, one of many albums the South African duo released in their 40-plus year career.

There's Rai Rebels, an album that got a lot of airtime at the small record store I worked at in the Eighties. It compiles Algerian artists who specialized in Rai, a genre that owes a lot to middle Eastern music.

And there's Malathini, the deep-voiced South African "groaner" who worked with and without the vocal group, the Mahotella Queens. Two of their releases are still on the shelf and they're quite well worn, if that applies to CDs.

Those first two albums - vinyl ones - are marked with promotional stamps, indicating that they were freebies sent out by record companies to help spread the good word. My fellow employees and I often haggled to determine who would walk off with certain promos, but no one fought me for the African stuff.

Back then, I didn't know squat about Zimbabwe, in particular, and Africa, in general. I knew the latter was a continent and I was vaguely aware that Zimbabwe was located in southern Africa, somewhere near South Africa. Whose location on the continent was kind of tipped off by the name.

But I dutifully copied the album onto a cassette and proceeded listen to it, and needless to say, it was quite a revelation. All those jittery rhythms and jingly guitars. Listening to it now, as a refresher (on YouTube, alas), it's all coming back to me and there's not a dud in the bunch.

The standouts for me were the two musicians here who became very well-known outside of Africa. There was Thomas Mapfumo, the so-called Lion of Zimbabwe, who's often credited with "rescuing" Zimbabwean music from the Western influences that were once so prevalent and injecting it with a healthy dose of Zimbabwean traditional music and instrumentation.

Mapfumo's music was one of my launching points into African music and my next step was a 1995 release on EMI/Hemisphere called The Best of Thomas Mapfumo - Chimuerenga Forever. In a time when music, and especially African music, was a lot harder to come by, this 71-minute compilation was essential.

In his early days, Mapfumo teamed up with another Zimbabwean who also went on to also make a name for himself, inside and outside of Africa. Oliver Mtukudzi also appears here, with a song called ‘Ndanga Ndabaiwa’ (‘I Was Nearly Stabbed’).

Early on, Tuku, as he was called, didn't score with me quite to the extent that Mapfumo did. It's only in recent years that I realized what I was overlooking. Nowadays I listen to Mtukudzi more than any other African artist. Look around this site and you can see the evidence.

• Thomas Mapfumo – 'Pidigori'

• Four Brothers – 'Rudo Imoto'

• Jonah Moyo And Devera Ngwena – 'Ndatambura Newe'

• Zexie Manatsa And The Green Arrows – 'Muti Usina Zita'

• Oliver Mutukudzi – 'Ndanga Ndabaiwa"

• Patrick Mkwamba And The Four Brothers – 'Emeriya Usanyengedzwe'

• Susan Mapfumo And The Black Salutarys – 'Dzvoko'

• Robson Banda And The New Black Eagles – 'Nyimbo Yakwasu'

• Jonah Moyo And Devera Ngwena – 'Taxi Driver'