Category Archives: Dance and Music

A Poem

The song on is just killing me
The heavy rhythm
The rich booming voice
The lyrics ignite in me
A wistful  longing
A wistful longing for that sweetness
The innocence from the distant bygone past
In my beloved homeland African village
The swift flow of the Lundazi river
Oh! How I yearn
For the sweet smelling scent of fresh water
The song is just killing me

Grandmother NyaMwaza calling
Her voice echoing in the tall trees
Of the nkhorongo wilderness
Mwizenge iwe  UUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where njiba wild pigeons sing all day
It’s a tearful longing for a carefree past
A life and sweet land that my grandfather left
For Zibalwe and all the seventeen villages
Mtema, Kapyanga, Kamzati and fourteen others
Swaying the body to the music
Oh! How dancing is so irresistible.
The song is just killing me

The music stirs the deepest part of my soul
A few tears of pain and joy
Roll down my cheeks
The song touches tender cords in my soul
The Tumbuka say: nyimbo yudinginyika.
The song “whines” and “bemoans”.
The past that stretches a thousand years
The sweet primordial past
Oh! How the English is such a prison.
English is such a cage
The song is just killing me

October 1, 2004

When I first listened to the Oliver Mtukudzi song  “Ngoromera” it involved my deep memories from my childhood past. The poem above simply poured out of my heart.

 

On YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65rsgfztQhg

July 2004

The second song on the his CD is just killing me; the heavy rhythm and the

rich booming voice and lyrics ignite in me a yearning and longing for that sweetness from the distant bygone past in my beloved homeland; the swift flow of the  fresh smelling water of the Lundazi river.

My grandmother NyaMwaza calling for us and her voice echoing in the tall trees of the  nkhorongo wilderness where njiba wild pigeons sing all day. It’s a tearful  yearning for a carefree past; a life and sweet land  that my grandfather left for  us at Zibalwe and all the 17 seventeen villages; Mtema, Kapyanga, Chipewa  and many others.

I can’t help but dance. This music will stir both  your  soul and spirit. You may need ti wipe your tears with the back of your hand; a few tears will flow.

Three of the songs may touch those taut cords in your soul in this manner.  The Tumbuka may say: nyimbo yudinginyika.  Closest translation being that the song “whines” or “bemoans”. English sometimes is so inadequate. Tuku  music is actually a descendant of the Mbira music from the Shona. Have you ever listened to the original Mbira as recorded from Rhodesia Highfields?

Some of my most favorite traditional music is that accompanied with the traditional kalimba in Eastern Province of Zambia. Westerners call the instrument “finger piano”. It has such a special soulful and spiritual resonance. Some of my early favorites were by Msamalia Mwanza who I use to listen to on Nyanja or Home Srvice of radio Zambia from the 1960s.

When I was working at the Institute of African Studies in Lusaka in 1989, I heard the beautiful kalimba sound as I came out of my car to walk to my office. I followed the sound to one of the modest residences at the institute. It was the great Washeni Zulu. I had heard his music on radio Zambia. I could not believe my eyes and my ears. Here was great treasure.

YouTube has a clip, linked here.

He was a blind but short perhaps middle aged man. He was singing with a woman who gave him the lovely backing vocals.

After I introduced myself I asked him if he had thought of going to recording studio in Lusaka to record and sell his music. He replied that he had no way financially of doing it. I told him I was not a professional recorder. Could I come later to record his music on my audio tape recording boom box.  He agreed.

So it was that later that day I went to his house with fresh batteries and one audio tape recorder. More than twenty years later I was to record his music into a studio version of a CD that I could sell. Each time I returned to Lusaka, I tried to find out where Mr. Washeni Zulu was. He lived in the area of Luangwa district on the border with Mozambique on the banks of the Luangwa River before it pours into the Zambezi.

This is one of my most favorite of his songs. I recorded it in April 1989 and                                                           transcribed and translated it into English on June 29, 1992 in the United States.

Washeni Zulu’s songs are very powerful as they reflect and are a commentary on life’s problems and troubles. This song addresses the change from a traditional to the modern urban life style. This change has introduced tremendous conflict and stresses in the Zambian society. The lyrics of this song by Washeni Zulu are a commentary on the life and conduct of  some Zambian young women in the city  and how they relate to their mothers. The song is called in Nyanja or Nsenga as “Lifiti Yinkhale Ng’anda” meaning making the car rides your home. Young women in the city like to hitch rides from men with cars and money. This is the song is partilularly rich because it has everything in it: poetry, humor, and criticism.

CAR  RIDES  ARE  YOUR  HOME

by Washeni  Zulu

Every other line in the refrain: (Your daughter is a chungwa; meaning irresponsible, misfit or scandalous)

Washeni: Car rides are your home

Refrain Response: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Car rides are your home

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Let it be your home, your daughter has run away from her husband

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: She wants to wander around

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: She wants to wander around, when she hears the sound of a car her ears peck up

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Her mother asked her where she was going

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Chickens cry kokoko

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Water splashes, splash splash

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: The cat cries, meow meow

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: She walks about with red eyes

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Children these days have no respect

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Slapped her own mother, slapped her

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Insulted her own mother saying she is a square

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Too many cars that drive by on the road

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: How do you know it belongs to Mr. Banda?

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: You have to know the sound of the car

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

 

Washeni: My daughter you seem sheepish

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Are you ill? Mother,  I have a headache

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Your daughter is lying, She has a disease

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: My daughter brings the beef, where did you get it from?

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: I will hide it behind the door mother, because I am afraid you will beat me

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: I cannot beat you

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: I can’t beat you, only your father can beat you

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Bring the beef here so I can taste it

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: After tasting it her mother found it was delicious

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

 

Washeni: Her mother danced around

Washeni: Her mother danced around

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Her mother even tripped on the ground

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Her mother sustained cuts on her forehead

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: She had cuts on her knees

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: When her daughter returned from the city, returned from the city

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: She had all these expensive knick knacks

Washeni: She had all these goodies

Washeni: She had all these goodies

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: She had tons of sugar

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: When mother run to meet her daughter, she tripped and fell on a stone

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: My daughter, what do you have in your hands?

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: What I have, mother, in my hands is a piece of cake

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Let’s taste the cake, her mother tasted it

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: The mother was so ecstatic

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: She had to be cautioned

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Her mother was told to dress decently, to wear better clothes

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

 

Washeni: Lady, there are people outside

Washeni: Lady, there are people outside

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Some things in life need quick action

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Lady, some things are in the bush

Washeni: Some things come late my daughter

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Things are mgaligeti my child

Washeni: Things are mgaligeti my child

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

 

 

Washeni: Car rides are your home

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Car rides are your home

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Let it be your home, your daughter has run away from her husband

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: She wants to wander around

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: She wants to wander around, when she hears the sound of a car her ears peck up

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Her mother asked her where she was going

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: I am going to your son-in-law

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Who is my son-law?

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Who do you ask, mother, remember he brought meat?

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: He brought meat on Sunday and brought corn meal

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Chickens are giggling and cry kokoko

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Water splashes, – splash – splash

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: The cat cries meow meow

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Look here she comes with red eyes

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

Washeni: Children these days have no respect

Refrain: Your child is a misfit

The year was December 1970. James Brown came to the Southern African country of Zambia. He performed in the Capital city of Lusaka and the Dag Hammarskjold Stadium in Ndola on the Copper belt. What followed the next three years was incredible. Zambia was gripped by the James Brown mania. Students who had spent school holidays in the city took to rural boarding schools the James Brown and his Famous Flames dance. People were wearing tailor made James Brown suits. Many buttons and records were sold. The radio stations were buzzing with his music. James Brown, the great black American singer and stage performer, commanded great respect, awe, and enthusiasm among millions in America, Africa, and the rest of the world. This was also the time when the black Civil Rights movement was at its peak in the USA and Africans were gaining independence from European colonialism.

“James Brown: The Godfather of Soul” by James Brown with Bruce Tucker is Brown’s autobiography. Reading the book quenches the burning curiosity about this famous black man. Who is he? Where and when was he born? How was his childhood? How did American racism affect him? How did he become famous? The autobiography answers most of these questions. He was born of very poor parents in the Southern part of America in rural Augusta in the State of Georgia. His parents separated when Brown was four years old. He was subsequently raised by an aunt in a very bad social environment of poverty, hunger, prostitution, squalor, lack of job and educational opportunities for blacks, and racism. As a young teenager, he dropped out of school, got involved in delinquent behavior and spent some of his teenage years behind bars. It was during this time that he was attracted to and interested in church gospel singing, playing the piano, music and dancing.

After his release from prison, he was on his way to national and international fame as the most creative, energetic, and entertaining pioneer in soul music and funk. From the autobiography, the reader gathers that Brown was a very ambitious and determined man driven by his desire to succeed, be a proud pioneering black man, and be the best stage performer while always being on the cutting edge. The long list or “discography” at the end of the book of his known recordings over three decades is testimony that James Brown is indeed the God Father of Soul.

The epilogue to the autobiography is somewhat disappointing. James Brown was jailed in 1988 for driving away from the police. Other charges of wife and drug abuse are apparently mere concoctions, unsubstantiated allegations, and rumors meant to unjustly crucify this famous and uncompromising black man by the Southern racist judicial system.

For the reader who heard about, enjoyed and danced to James Brown music, and was there at the peak of his career and international fame, the book is simply a joy. It confirms some of the seemingly exaggerated anecdotes at the time that frequently filtered through the international grapevine. ,For example, that when he performed live on American television, the rioting in black ghettoes in America stopped. That when he performed before a sellout crowd of 90% white in England, Brown screeched: “Say it loud!!” The huge crowd responded and yelled: “I’m black and proud!!!” For how else could they have responded? His performance was so electrifying that crowds often tore up James Brown’s clothes. In perhaps the only recorded James Brown’s performance in the Capital city of Lusaka, I saw a man in the front row of the audience at Mulungushi Hall tear his own shirt to shreds due to sheer ecstasy at seeing James Brown perform.

International readers might be disappointed because the performances in Europe and African countries like Nigeria, Zambia, and Zaire only get a few paragraphs in the book.

Otherwise the book is an inspiration as James Brown had a less than a seventh grade education, grew up in poverty and racism, and yet defied all the adversity to become the most famous man in soul music, the hardest working man in show business, and The God Father of Soul.

I recommend this book for scholars of black American history, contemporary race relations, history of American popular music, soul, and Rhythm and Blues, and the relationship between the civil rights movement of the 1960s and evolution of popular music in America.

********* James Brown with Bruce Tucker, The God Father of Soul,  New York, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1986 and 1990. 352 pp. 13.95 US dollars Paper Back.

Do you remember what you were doing when planes had crashed into the twin skyscraper towers in New York, John F Kennedy was assassinated, John Lennon was killed,  Princess Diana had died, when the Pope or Mother Theresa had died, or Appollo 13 had landed man on the moon, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years in apartheid South Africa? I will never forget what I was doing when I heard James Brown had died. I was at a Christmas Day family party with large numbers of relatives of many ages milling around and up and down stairs migrating between the kitchen, the TV room, and the basement. I was talking to my twenty year old nephew about his new computer gift in his basement bedroom when my eighteen year old son popped his head through the door and said:

“Dad, did you know James Brown died this morning?” I don’t remember my response. The rest of my Christmas Day was somber. I was six hundred miles away in Michigan  from my home in Virginia where I owned recordings of much of his music. I was ten thousand miles away from Zambia in Southern Africa when I had first been introduced to the “God Father of Soul”, and the “Hardest working Man in Show Business”.

I was introduced to James Brown in a most unlikely way. This was not in the Ghettoes of Watts in Los Angeles, Detroit, or in Harlem. This was ten thousand miles away from the United States in the small remote provincial capital of Chipata in the African country of Zambia. I was a seventeen year-old village kid at Chizongwe Boarding High School.

In December 1970, James Brown held two concerts in my native country of Zambia. My high school classmate, Ben Kalinda, was one of the very tiny numbers of students who had been lucky enough to have relatives in the city and had spent his Christmas Holidays on the Copperbelt. On the very first night back from school holidays, all the boys were sitting and lying on their beds in the military style-type barrack that was Aggrey House dormitory.

Ben first described the huge excited crowd at the packed Dag Hammarskjöld Stadium in the City of Ndola. Tension of anticipation built up to a crescendo and when James Brown finally shot on to the stage like a bouncing  ping pong ball, the crowd turned hysterical and surged forward. They wanted a piece of him; just to touch him. The police and security beat and pushed the crowd back.

Ben demonstrated how James Brown danced to his hit song: “Like a Sex Machine.” Ben spun around on the dorm floor like an ice skater, then rapidly shuffled his feet with lighting speed, and repeatedly gestured his left hand in a grabbing motion toward his private parts; but never quite touching them. Ben then suddenly dropped to floor in the signature James Brown split. All the boys were hollering, screaming, and laughing and my eyes were probably welling with tears and popping out of my sockets with disbelief at the same time. The energy and excitement was contagious.

None of us had ever seen James Brown on TV which was unknown to most of us, heard about him, or knew who he was. Black and white TV at that time was only available four hundred miles away in the distant city and only in affluent homes. Ben told us James Brown was an Afro-American; a Negro. Ben said to the mesmerized boys that James Brown held a concert in a packed stadium in England among crowds of hundreds of thousands of whites. When James Brown yelled:

“Say it loud!!” The white crowd responded: “I’m Black and Proud!!”

Ben described the end of the concert in slow vivid detail. James Brown was sweating, appeared to be crying, tired, and exhausted as he pleaded and sung: “Please, Please, Please”.  The stage hands and the announcer persuaded him to leave the stage, as James Brown slowly limped one slow step at a time, while being led away and draping him with a long colorful robe. Near the back of the stage, just like a sphinx coming back from the ashes, defying his escorts, James Brown suddenly threw away the robe and dashed back to the middle of the stage crying, pleading and wailing “Please, Please, Please”. The crowd had gone bonkers. It was that night thirty-six years ago that I fell in love with the James Brown legend.

One year later, I was a wide eyed eighteen year old high school graduate village kid on his first job in the real world in the small provincial town of Chipata. I was Assistant Manager and Clerk at the Chipata Nutrition Group. Bob Weisell and his wife Joan were a young white middle class couple from Indiana. He worked as an International Aid Volunteer at the office. We became good friends. They invited me to their two bedroom apartment where he told me about American football. Bob had played football in High School. I had no clue what the game was. I told him about how I loved James Brown. Our conversation must have made a big impression on Bob because the following December after he had returned to the United States for Christmas, he brought me one of the biggest presents anyone had given me; the James Brown Double album LP: “Revolution of the Mind: Live at the Apollo Vol. III”.

At the time, I was renting a small room just slightly bigger than an average jail cell. My worldly possessions were a small mattress on the floor in the corner of the one room. A small suitcase, a couple of clothes, and a small briefcase size portable record player. I bought six “D” batteries and put them in my record player. I put on the first James Brown  LP record. My mind was just blown away. In the candle light, I began to dance and tried to perfect the James Brown moves I had only tried to dance to on the radio when ever the “Sex Machine” hit had come on.

Later, I moved to the Capital City of Lusaka where I was an undergraduate at the University of Zambia. The city was gripped with the James Brown Mania. Young men wore James Brown hand tailored suites. Young women wore long knee length leather boots with flamboyant huge Afros just like the James Brown woman who performed with the Flames. I couldn’t afford the James Brown suite as it had to be hand tailored. At my uncle’s house, my late little nephews Victor and Calistus (5 and 8 at the time) always asked me to perform James Brown in the guest bedroom when I staid at my uncle’s in Lusaka. The kids were so thrilled and joined me in the spinning and lightening moves of my feet on the waxed bedroom floor. Doing the James Brown split was easy at the time in soft polythene long pants. If ever I danced like James Brown to day and did his split, I would need a cardiac surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon, an ambulance, and perhaps a coffin to be on stand by.

James Brown energized, thrilled, entertained, and inspired the imagination of the small village kid that I was. He will never die. He electrified crowds. The African people of Zambia at the time felt like we were part of millions in the world and sharing the distant American dream. Everyone in life ought to have the experience of having a “James Brown”. It could be a person, could be an activity, it could be a persona. The James Brown for you could be anyone or anything that inspires you, that thrills you, takes you out of and beyond your mundane everyday world; with only one important caveat: it should be someone you admire or something that you experience that does not make you fat or involve ingesting mind altering substances. Now there is your James Brown. Have you ever had or do you have a James Brown in your life?