by BERNARD CHIKETO
Thomas “Mukanya” Mapfumo, the exiled lion of Zimbabwean music, will return home in April for a final farewell performance.
The announcement of this “Bira”—a Shona term for a spiritual gathering—is more than a concert listing.
It is the closing of a revolutionary chapter, offering a divided nation a mirror to its past and a puzzle for its future.
For decades, Mapfumo’s Chimurenga music, named for the liberation struggle, provided the soundtrack to rebellion.
First against Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, then, more dangerously, against the successive ZANU-PF governments that followed.
His anthems like “Corruption” and “Mamvemve” became blistering critiques of betrayed promises, forcing him into a two-decade exile in Oregon, USA.
His last home performance was back in 2018.
In his announcement, Mukanya, who spent a career “at loggerheads with all administrations”, declared he backed no party, speaking only for himself—a deft, perhaps weary, sidestep of the partisan capture his legacy risks.
His retirement from the stage, he insists, is not an abandonment of music.
The performance will undoubtedly be a spectacular, emotionally charged pilgrimage for thousands.
Yet the political innuendo will definitely be closely watched.
Will the state, which long bristled at his criticism, seek to appropriate this final show as a symbol of national unity and reconciliation? Or will the gathered crowds hear in classics like “Pfumvu Paruzevha” a lament for paths not taken?
Mapfumo’s legacy is the uncomfortable truth that the same music that cheered liberation became the loud lament of its disappointment.
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