Africans Abandoning Own Heritage

One of the biggest shocks of my life occurred when I was in graduate soon here in America. The university's Department of Music sent out a flyer for a show to showcase African music. On the flier, Americans who had never been to Zimbabwe were slated to perform the Mbende Dance as well as the mbira. I was curious to see how badly they were going to botch the whole Zimbabwean thing, I mean the mbira gig.

What about the Mbende part, you ask? Well, I had no idea what that was. For me, a mbende was a field mouse. I had never heard of a Mouse Dance all my life. So, as you can imagine, I also wanted to see what the Americans were going to do with a supposedly Zimbabwean dance routine named after mice. Honest to goodness, I had no idea what it was. Anyhow, once I was in the auditorium, it took the American performers to teach me the history of the Mbende Dance. The dance had been heavily denounced by the fledgling Christian community as evil since it involved what the high priests of the alien faith called a Satanic orgy. To pacify the Christian zealots, the Zimbabweans cleverly renamed the dance Jerusarema. Ah, that one, it was more than familiar to me. The dance had featured quite prominently during the ancient African sanctification ritual for my paternal grandfather. A year after his death and burial, his family had to carry out the kurova-guva ritual. Through all the intervening years between my first encounter with the dance and my American reconnection with the same dance, it had been called nothing else but Jerusarema. It took Americans to teach me what ought to have been my story.

As for the performance, boy, was it fun! They did all the Mangwende routines, the wooden clappers, the retinue of animated drum players and, of course, the "orgy" dance. Truly, Murehwa had come to America. To put the icing on that cake, the performers sang one of the ancient Karanga songs, Guva Rangu. Yes sir, with my own Karanga ears, I heard a group of Americans sing: Guva rangu, kana ndazofa, guva rangu, muyise paruware. I was gobsmacked. That was not all.

I waited for the mbira performance. A white girl was going to play the mbira. To myself, I said: "There is no way she is going to play that instrument of the music of the Gods!" Was I wrong! Where I had expected the player to do the simple dongi-mombe-mbudzi twanging of the keys, she left me transfixed as she played with the verve and expertise of a bona fide Karanga gwenyambira. As the music seeped it's way to the core of my Karanga heart, it opened my eyes. I can tell you that I looked for the American girl. My search was in vain.

I am telling you about this incident to highlight the fact that African music is gaining popularity in the West at a surprising rate. The West is embracing the music for its entertaining value and its spirituality. In the meantime, what are we doing? We are stupidly throwing it all away as we eat up the West's feacal waste. What the morons at ZBC have done in banishing the famous Mbende music played as a prelude to the news bulletin is an an example of the kind of idiocy I am talking about.