++ Recently (September
2015) Stanley Mushava did an interview with Zimbabwean poet Musaemura Zimunya,
about both the kinship between Zimunya and the late Zimbabwean musician,
Marshall Munhumumwe and their work as artists. I am convinced that this interview
will be useful to all those who have an interest in Zimbabwean poetry and
Zimbabwean music. I post it here, with the kind permission of both Stanley
Mushava (SM) and Musaemura Zimunya (MZ).
SM: How were you related to Marshall and
how did your lives interact?
MZ: Sekuru Munhumumwe, Marshall’s father, was my
mother’s eldest living brother by a different mother but born of the same
father, VaKufera of Masvaure Village in Marange.
I did not know about the Munhumumwe branch of the Kufera family until I
was well into my teens when Marshall’s brother, Peter Munhumumwe, turned up in
Zimunya to visit my mother, his aunt. We
struck a good understanding and close friendship there and then and when he
left, we would correspond through letters.
But I was not able to see Marshall until I was doing A-Levels at
Goromonzi High when eventually I visited Sekuru Munhumumwe in Mahusekwa. And because Marshall was a shy young man,
though he was older than me, I was always closer to Sekuru Peter. Then about 1975, when I was studying at the
University of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), we were to meet regularly at the Mapfumo
house in Harare (National). It must be
remembered that Thomas Mapfumo’s mother was accepted as the eldest child in the
Munhumumwe family, though she was already born when her mother got married to
Sekuru Munhumumwe. Thus, my mother was
her Tete, according to Shona custom and she was my Mainini. By then Marshall was already a drummer
playing with The Tutenkamen Band at Mushandirapamwe and staying with the
Mapfumo family. Still, I found him
difficult to hold conversations with because he was shy and withdrawn, to the
point of being almost mysterious.
SM:
What are some of your memorable encounters with him?
MZ:
As already mentioned, I recall my first encounter with Marshall at the Mapfumo
homestead. It was a cold winter morning
just before sunrise and so there was a fire outside for everyone to warm
themselves. I had not seen Marshall the
night before because he was playing drums at Mushandirapamwe Hotel. He was quiet, as though he was in his own
world – a spiritual world.
Soon
afterwards I left for my studies overseas.
And although I came back in 1980, I did not get to see Marshall because
he was no longer staying at the Mapfumo homestead. However, I followed him and The Four Brothers
through their music on the radio and on television. I was astounded to think he could sing
because there had been no evidence of this in his earlier life as an
artist. I was also surprised that he
could present a charming face in his videos, given his introverted character.
I
got reunited with Marshall through Biggie Tembo, who had been following my
literary reviews and occasional poetry readings on Television and I had already
met at Saratoga, under very odd circumstances.
It was at Rufaro Stadium on a day Dynamos were playing Black Rhinos and
I was somewhere in the middle of the Vietnam section of the eastern terraces. Biggie is the one that spotted me and invited
me to sit with him. Then he introduced
Marshall to me and then he said “Mukoma Marshall ava ndimukoma Musa Zimunya and
Mukoma Musa ava ndiMukoma Marshall Munhumwe.” There and then Marshall and I,
delighted and embarrassed to be introduced by a stranger, rose and hugged and
shook the energies out of each other.
Biggie could not understand until we explained. We shared memories and forgot about the
football match and exchanged contact numbers and addresses and Marshall invited
me to Machipisa Nightclub to listen to The Four Brothers Band for free any day
I chose.
Thereafter
I was not only to enjoy free entrance to the Night Club but also keep regular
company with Marshall. He would invite me to accompany him to collect his
royalties at Gallo, after which I would accompany him to pay his bills, buy
home gadgets and then we would go drinking at shebeens in Highfield. By this time I could see he was slightly less
reserved than I had known him to be in
previous times. And, of course, he was
very popular on the streets of Lusaka.
I
have many fond memories of Marshall, but two moments stand out in our
interaction. One was when I invited him
to go upon a trip to Mahusekwa during which I interviewed him for an article
for Praise Zenenga’s Sunday Observer Magazine.
What was special about this trip is that I spent the whole day with him,
interviewing and discussing his artistic journey and creative methods while
playing his music. To-date, I doubt if
there was ever anyone who did as deep an interview with Marshall as I did then.
The second occasion was in 1998 during a break from performing at Kambuzuma
Garden Party when I followed him to his car when he confided in me while he was
reclining in his car that he had lost his appetite for everything – life, beer,
music women and food. And here I have
used simple words to avoid offending readers.
It was a singularly chilling message. A few months after this Thomas
Mapfumo called me to tell that Marshall had been admitted at Parirenyatwa
Hospital. When I visited him I found him
in the initial stages of a stroke. He
could still speak. One member of his
band was evening pushing for Marshall to ensure the doctors released him for
the weekend’s show. No one had known
that Marshall would never be the same again.
After several days he was never to regain his speech faculty, let alone
his melodious voice. My last memory of
him is at his house, his body down to his bones, disabled and clinging onto my
hands with tears rolling down his cheeks as his only means of expression and
only his son to attend to his needs.
SM: Did you exchange notes as artists?
MZ: There were many times I felt
obliged to compliment him on his compositions on account of the originality of
his beat, lyrics and melodies. Of course
he was once embarrassed about ignorantly using some of Mordecai Hamutyinei’s
lines on “Vimbai” without seeking permission, but after admitting to copyright
violation and paying compensation to the poet, he was never to use anyone
else’s poetry for his music. He became even more determined that he did not
need to plunder anyone’s talents to climb to the top. What I also learned from him was that a lot
of his music was inspired by voices on the street, what people said casually
but was yet loaded with poetic and philosophical meaning relevant to all human
beings and to society. So, poets do not
have to invent everything. And he was
one hell of a poet. He also showed me
his song book, where his pen literally carved every line and every stanza of
every song painstakingly with rigorous clarity “in the early hours of the
morning” – in his own words.
SM: What
about the version that you wrote songs for Marshall?
MZ: No.
Let me state very clearly that my support for Marshall and The Four
Brothers never went beyond attending their shows and encouraging every
direction they took in their evolution since the mid-80’s. For which they fully
appreciated. I never ever composed a
single song for Marshall. The story is
one of those flattering myths about oneself, but purely based on
guesswork. It probably also comes from
the fact that someone whispered to someone that we were related. Like I often hear some say Marshall
Munhumumwe Muzukuru was Thomas Mapfumo, whereas the truth is that it is
Marshall who is Thomas’ Sekuru because he is Thomas’ mother’s brother.
SM: Tell us the story of that trip to Marshal's
original home to write an article on him for The Herald.
MZ: As mentioned earlier, I had been
asked by Praise Zenenga of The Sunday Observer to do an in-depth story on
Marshall for his Magazine series on Zimbabwean musicians. He knew I was close to Marshall and could get
more about him and his family than most.
So, I thought the best idea is for me to sponsor a drive to Chionana
near Mahusekwa in Chihota which would really be one long and undisrupted
experience. We had also purchased
grocery supplies for the family who would also be part of the interview. It was a truly unforgettable experience culminating
in that big article headlined: “Is Marshall also a Poet?”
SM: What do
both of you represent in the canon of Zimbabwean arts?
MZ: Well, there are people better
placed to judge my poetry, prose and criticism than myself. All I can say without any arrogance is that I
am proud to have been privileged to be involved in what I would call “The
Golden Generation” of Zimbabwean literature in English in the ‘70’s who put
Zimbabwean writing on the African continent and the world map. Thereafter, since the ‘80’s I have been in
the limelight of the literary sector in various capacities as Secretary General
of The Zimbabwe Writers Union and Chair of The Zimbabwe Writers Association of
late. Marshall Munhumumwe is already a
legend in the music that straddles mbira/Shona traditional and Sungura whose legacy
stands as a bright beacon in the history of popular music in Zimbabwe and the
outlying region. His lyrics are mature
and poetically moving whether you listen to “Rudo Moto” or “Rwendo Rwekudenga”
or “Ndipe Uta Hwangu” or “Mudiwa Wangu” while his voice has that unique
brightness that carries beauty like a crystal wave.
SM: How did you become a writer yourself?
MZ: This is a question that requires an
interview by itself. However, I can tell
you that I was a singer in the Methodist Church choir and had already begun to
lead quartets, trios and duos to entertain fellow pupils in primary
school. I also had some compositions of
my own at the time. That was my first
experience as a composer. When I was a
student at Chikore Secondary School we had a demanding culture of reading
poetry and prose in Shona and English.
The school also had a publication called “Young Voice” in which my first
poem in English appeared when I was in Form Two. Thereafter, the late Toby Moyana, our English
and English Literature instructor took a keen interest in my work and loaded me
with books of poetry and prose to read for my own development. He was such a mentor that up to the time I
was at university in England his voice would always caution, condemn, command,
advise and reassure me in whatever I did - including my attitude to the world.
SM: We have
seen your pictures with a guitar? Are you a singing writer? How does music
intersect with literature?
MZ: My father was a great mbira player
who was murdered just when I had made contact with Grammar for him to record
his songs. He used to put me on his lap
and play the mbira in my ear. The sounds
of the mbira gave me a tremendous spiritual and imaginative vision of the
forests, mountains and rivers that linger on in my head to-date. The tragedy is that my mother would not entertain
my daring to learn to play the mbira for fear I would become a “rombe”. But in the comfort and isolation of my days
at the mission school I learned to play the guitar. I entertained fellow students from about Form
Three all the way to the University of Rhodesia via Goromonzi. My greatest success was playing at Kent at
Canterbury University for fun – either solo or with Olly Maruma or white
students who shared our idea of fun. The
pictures you refer to were taken then. I
have composed my own songs and deep in my heart I have an undying wish to
record some of these and perhaps show the world how poetry and music – and I
mean music, not hohoho - belong together.
SM: What are
the rocks doing in your poems? Are you a fan of sculpture? Does it have any
influence on your work?
MZ: My fascination with rocks began in
my childhood, just fascination with what they are, how they came to be and
there powerful presence in the form of boulders atop mountains or hills. Some
of them have animal shapes, others human or strange forms. Their inability to
speak confounds – their silence. We climbed rocks when we were young with my
brothers for the fun of it. But Great
Zimbabwe was to transform my perception of rocks into something mythical,
mysterious as well as a tool with which our ancestors built an impregnable
legacy – footprints to inspire all future generations to remember there once
treaded on this earth great African leaders and architects and cultural
visionaries.
SM:
And Now the Poets Speak must have
been a landmark feat. How did you coordinate the project?
MZ:
This collection was the product of an evening I shared with Mudereri Kadhani in
Kent in the United Kingdom when we were exiled students back in 1979. We had both been jailed for taking part in
the 1973 “Ports and Pants Demo” at the University of Rhodesia. We were looking for a cultural role in the
Revolution and were determined to fill a void in our literature, that of poetry
focusing primarily on the war of liberation.
As it so happened, once back in the country in 1980, we were the first
to do poetry readings on television in the newly independent Zimbabwe, but by
then we had already sent out a call for submissions of poetry for the
collection. The response was so
overwhelming in terms of numbers of manuscripts, but also in the quality of
hitherto unknown poets such as Chenjerai Hove, Carlos Chombo and Killian
Mwanaka, Hopewell Seyaseya, Solomon Mahaka, Pathisa Nyathi, Lazarus Dokora,
Vitalis Nyawaranda and Emmanuel Ngara. It was an amazing experience just
sifting through the submissions. And if
you take a close look at this list, you can only agree that ours was an
inspired vision.
SM:
What are the landmarks of your writing career?
MZ:
Briefly the following is an outline of the major key moments in my creative
writing career:
-
1970
Received the Special National Poetry Award for the best folio of five poems in
a multiracial competition run by the Poetry Society of Rhodesia.
-
1970
had some of the poems published in Chirimo Poetry Magazine
-
1971
Some of the poems from that folio were published in New Coin Poetry Magazine
(South Africa)
-
1971-81
– regular contributor to the Poetry Society magazines, Two Tone (Quarterly) and
Rhodesian Poetry (Annual).
-
1979
– First poetry publication Zimbabwe Ruins.
-
1981
– published And now the Poets – Co-ed Mudereri Kadhani
-
1982
– published Thought Tracks
-
1983
– published Those Years of Drought and Hunger (Criticism)
-
1993
– published Nightshift (Short Stories)
-
1993
– Conducted poetry readings at ……..and University of Washington
-
1987
– Attended the Contemporary African Writers Conference in Rome
-
1989
– Appointed to Panel of Judges of African Poetry for the BBC collection, The
Fate
of Vultures published by
Heinemann.
-
1996
– Awarded distinguished Poet of Smederevo – Yugoslavia
-
2000
– Invited to the Medellin Poets of the World Festival (Poetas del Mundo),
Colombia
-
2003
– Invited to the Durban International Poetry Festival
SM:
Tell us about the Scribe's Scroll and what "public" criticism means
for the book sector?
MZ: I am not certain as to who was
the brainchild behind the long running Monday Book
Review column entitled “Scribes Scroll”
whose first editor was Tonic Sakaike who invited
me to write the first article for it and I obliged published in two
parts. I think it was entitled “The Birth of Zimbabwean Fiction” or something
like that. The column itself was
subsequently to run for more than a decade under various editors among whom
included Davison Maruziva and Stephen Mpofu.
Throughout the period it ran, it provided a forum for book reviews,
literary news, articles and information on books and The Zimbabwe International
Book Fair.
As for criticism, there is no doubt that from time to time writers and
books deserve scrutiny from expert readers and scholars who, at their best,
open the eyes of the public to the treasures hidden within the covers of books
or expose literary pretenders or charlatans.
All writers, new and old, need to be reminded of the good service they
provide to the public as well as the disservice - in some respects. Of course, some of the contemporary book
reviewers have no clue what a book review is.
But, ultimately, there is no such thing as “bad publicity”, though not
all writers agree with these views.
SM:
ZIBF. What were the highs and lows?
MZ: During my first term as
Chairperson of ZIBF, the organization experienced vibrant growth
culminating in the re-launching of The ZIBF
Bulawayo Book Fair and The ZIBF Mutare Book
Fair in 201, followed by the first
launching of The ZIBF Masvingo Book Fair in 2013. All of
these projects were aimed at spreading the
benefit of the Book Fair and its related activities
such as exhibitions, workshops
(mini-indabas), Children’s Reading Tent and
Live Literature
to far-flung cities across the land in order
spread the access to books to members of the
public across the land. In due course, we created The Digital Zone,
an IT booth for, as a
permanent feature to provide a guided digital
experience for young and mature visitors to
all our exhibitions. From 2013 onwards, we also ran an event
called The Literary Evening at
all our book fairs in order to give a
platform to writers to come together and read and
discuss their works. Even most positively, my two terms at the
helm of ZIBF saw a gradual
process of integrating the book through
cajoling and an inclusive approach to all our
activities so that no sub-sector was
marginalized from our programmes. One of
our projects,
The All Stakeholders Anti-Book Piracy Workshop
(2013) was a product of this vision of
integrating the book sector to recognize that
we are stronger together than as separate sub-
sectors vying in opposite directions. Of course, there is little one could do
should some sub-
sectors choose to stay away as ours is a
voluntary association of willing players.
One
could say the biggest challenge ZIBF experienced came in the form of the severe
depression that has affected the book sector over the first two decades of the
millennium. Of course, it may be
apparent to the public that for decades, our publishing sector has been the
mainstay of ZIBF because when the going is good, it has greater financial
wherewithal than all the other sectors.
When you see empty bookshelves at the Book Fair, you can trace that to
the depression in the industry. It
should be restated that this depression is a consequence of many underlying
challenges, not the least of which are, the national economic meltdown at the
turn of the millennium, the death of the reading culture triggered by the low
purchasing power of the of the public or the downsizing of priorities by the
buying pubic together with the rampant and vicious book piracy which has
created a ready alternative market for books. Critically, when the
international monetary crisis forced our major cooperating partners to
drastically reduce funding for our activities, it was perhaps the lowest point
of my time at the helm of ZIBF.
SM:
You grew up during turbulent times. What are some of your memorable encounters
with the "system"?
MZ:
In August 1973 we engaged in a big demonstration called “The Pots and Pants”
Demo on the Campus of the University of Rhodesia in protest against sentiments that
had been voiced by an RF backbencher called Simington (I think) who attacked
black students at the university for being dirty, drunken and being a nuisance
for the white students and challenging their legitimacy in the institution. I remember the next day seeing a picture of
myself on the front page of “The Herald”
epitomizing the headline “University Students Run Riot” or something to that
effect. About 157 of us were
subsequently arrested and detained for 21 days while we attended trials
culminating in various sentences ranging from 9 months mandatory prison with
hard labour without the option of a fine.
Among that group were Witness Mangwende, Henry Dzinotyiwei, Andrew
Wutawunashe, Dambudzo Marechera, Rino Zhuwarara, Cadmiel Wekwete, Stanley
Kazhanje, Gwanzura, Misheck Nyamupingidza, Arthur Borerwe and many others. Following release at the end of the prison
terms, we were served with orders banning us from entering within a 10
kilometre radius of Salisbury (Harare) – which effectively meant we could not
resume our studies. That is how come we eventually
ended up in universities across Africa and the United Kingdom.
SM:
Why do Zimbabweans hang their pens
early? You, for example. Elsewhere, artists write into their 80s/90s.
MZ: It is not true that I have stopped writing. Those who spread the rumours that one is no
longer writing do so for their own
self-serving ends. There are many times
I have felt the
impulse to write about many ills affecting
our society and found that voices of intolerance
rendered in pathetic essays have choked the public space like the
Chivero weeds. Any fisherman knows what I mean by this metaphor. Further, for your information, I have quantities of unpublished poems, short
stories and even opinion pieces.
Sometimes when you have achieved a certain degree of accomplishment, you
hesitate to publish things you are not completely satisfied with and you wait
for precisely when you feel you have reworked everything to your
satisfaction. Sometimes when one is
starting out, one is more preoccupied with one’s ego at the expense of
perfection. Sometimes it is also a
matter of timing. And temperament plays
its part as well. It is a complex thing.
SM:
What do you have to say about the current literary scene?
MZ: I am eternally amazed at the
literary talents our small country is endowed with, talents that are eternally blooming from every possible
nook and cranny. The pity is that our book
industry is down on its knees. People do not read. Books do not make sense if they do not
find their way into the hands, minds and
hearts of readers. So, on the one hand,
we have all this talent, at the same time, we have no readership to nourish
it. It is a situation which could easily
lead back to the drought and hunger of earlier times – or a variation thereof.
(The End)
