Fitting national hero tribute to Tuku

By Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu

The death of Oliver Mtukudzi on 23 January 2019 has deprived Zimbabwe of one of its most eminent attractions, of its social life.Mtukudzi was an irreplaceable pillar of the entertainment industry not only in his country of birth, Zimbabwe, but in the whole Sadc region which is now undoubtedly the poorer without him.

Born in 1952, he was in his 67th year and had produced 66 albums, that means he was working at the rate of virtually an album annually, a quite high achievement in terms of intellectual creativity.

The Government of Zimbabwe most fittingly decided to accord him a national hero status, and that was announced at Mtukudzi’s home at Norton by President Emmerson Mnangagwa himself who said the decision was unanimously made by the Zanu–PF topmost leadership, the Politburo.

Every nation’s life rests on four pillars: the economic, the political, the social and the cultural. The four pillars share each nation’s time according to certain factors and players in each of those four activities.

In Mtukudzi’s case, he was given a very big part of the people’s social time whenever he entertained a very large number of fans. His shows put the country, Zimbabwe, more and more on the entire African continent’s map right across ethnic and language identities and characteristics.

Oliver Mtukudzi’s music career proved two very important things: One, that visual and aural entertainment can be enjoyed right across ethno–demographic characteristics, that is to say right across tribal, linguistic, age, and gender differences; the second is that visual and aural entertainment can be a viable industry by which families can be maintained.

There has got to be a favourable political environment, of course, unlike during the colonial era when all industries including the entertainment sector were geared towards the enrichment of the white people who got involved in its recording.

It was because of that colonial racialistic bias that such artistes as Dorothy Masuka, Josia Hadebe, Sonny Sondo, George Sibanda, Sabelo Mathe, Faith Dauti, Epworth Theatrical Strutters, the Golden Rhythm Crooners and the City Quads and several others could not economically sustain public entertainment as viable business concern.

Mtukudzi was a source of pride for every Zimbabwean, and we can reasonably hope that his legacy will be honoured by everyone concerned.

That should be particularly the case concerning his recorded songs, his intellectual properties that are no less his than his Norton house. It would be intolerably unfair to see his songs being sold by whomever, wherever and however on every town’s pavements.

It was touching to hear and see several professional singers expressing their condolences and saying they would very much miss the great man.

It is very common in our community for us to pay our respects in most glowing terms after the death of some famous person, and literally do nothing there – after to immortalise those memories.

We have numerous such people whose names have been forgotten, whose names were buried, as it were, and left at the cemetery to be forgotten by posterity sooner than later.

It could serve a very useful national purpose for surviving entertainment industry prominent names such as Albert Nyathi, Jays Marabini, Aleck Macheso and others to hold shows to raise funds for the construction of some Oliver Mtukudzi memorial centre at a place chosen by either Mrs Mtukudzi or by some other person delegated by Mrs Mtukudzi.

The funds could be utilised to upgrade the already existing Pakare Paya arts centre if that is felt to be a better alternative than to construct a completely new one. However, a new memorial centre could be either an orphanage, an old people’s home, a school or whatever else chosen by Mtukudzi’s appropriate next of kin.

If properly organised, it would not take more than four to five years to raise enough financial resources for such a centre.

The present government’s goodwill could be utilised in the formation of a board of trustees, and the location of such a centre could be left to the family of the late maestro to indicate.

Fund–raising shows could be held outside as well as in neighbouring countries such as South Africa and Botswana where there are large numbers of Zimbabweans.

Mtukudzi’s name and those of performing artistes who preceded him should not be forgotten, but should loom large in the history of Zimbabwe’s performing arts. Zimbabwe’s students of art and culture should be required to identify and interpret the messages in the works of maestros such as Mtukudzi, Safirio Madzikatire and others who have graced the country’s public entertainment fora.

Their music has up to now not been properly analysed as to their nature and content, message and soul. We have heard about such music genres as sungura and others, but we have been told nothing about whether they are diatonic, pentatonic or something else, nor have we been educated about their racial or ethnic origins.

It would be most interesting to conduct a comparative study of the music works by a number of prominent African musicians such as Mtukudzi, Franco (Luambo Luanzo Makiadi), Philemon Mokgosi, Marble Mafuya, Alick Nkhata, Miriam Makheba and a host of others, including Afro–Americans such as Ellah Fitzgerald and that great Afro-American concert performer, Dr Marian Anderson, whose wonderful contral took not only America but Britain, Germany and Finland by storm in the early 1930s.

Although Howard University conferred the degree of Doctor of Music on her, a similar honour in effect, given to Oliver Mtukudzi, does the world know what particular message her songs were meant to convey to her huge audiences?

A century hence, students of African performing arts will be asking questions some of whose answers today’s generation of musicology could and should give.

Similarly, our centres of higher learning could enlighten the nation if they carried out research in selected communities to establish how much time they spend on social occasions such as concerts and sports, how much on economic activities, how much on political activities, and how much on cultural matters such as church services and/ or other forms of worshipping.

Many people spent quite a bit of their social time at Oliver Mtukudzi’s shows, some of which ran more than half the nights because of the artiste’s popularity. Mtukudzi will be missed not only as a visual and aural entertainer, but as a person; he was a very kindly and very personable individual. May his soul rest in eternal peace.

– Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo – based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email. [email protected]. Sunday News.