Mbira music, Zimbabwe’s most popular music genre internationally, has had its ups and down partly due to the stigmas instilled by colonialism and the influence foreign music on the local market. Credit goes to Thomas Mapfumo and the Mbira Dzenhariras for keeping the sound alive for this music brand. Now, however, the genre has been given a new lease of life through the nyunga nyunga mbira. One just needs to walk around town or visit music venues where youth are performing such as the BOCAPA Xposure programme at the Book Cafe, to see the popularity of this instrument with the youth.
Mozambican in origin, the mbira was brought to Zimbabwe by Jege Tapera in the late sixties and was then modified at Kwanengoma College of African Music (now United College of Music) in Bulawayo with the aid of Andrew Tracy (ethnomusicologist). Dumisani Mararire, lecturer in USA between 1972 and 1990, popularized this instrument through establishing a system of notation and performances. His daughter, Chiwoniso, has since performed at many festivals around the world and at local mbira festivals, successfully establishing the nyunga nyunga as a competitive instrument. Chiwoniso’s fusion of traditional songs with English lyrics has rendered the instrument irresistible to the youth and her live performances are packed with revelers of different ages dancing to nyunga music. Many young mbira bands like Tru Bantu Kru, Nyunga Masters, Kakuwe to mention a few, have established themselves in music circles by playing this instrument. Most of them have progressed very well in talent shows in and around Harare like BOCAPA Xposure, Music Crossroads and even the A- Academy. This has been a positive move for the mbira genre, not only is the music preserved but with the youth, it has been modified, fused with other music forms, ensuring its survival, development and thus realising its full potential. This mbira is now taught in schools, universities and other various music institutions. It is easily accessible as it is for sale in many music shops.
Although an nyunga nyunga mbira is similar in construction to the Mbira Dzevadzimu, it varies in the number of keys and manuals as well as the fingering techniques. On the other hand, nyunga nyunga has no ritual connotations to Zimbabweans.
Says one youth ‘I mean I like to learn how to play the mbira and I like the music but the fact that my friends will think that I have ancestral spirits with me just puts me off’. One cannot associate it to any traditional ceremony or activity, which is probably one main reason why the youth of today try to identify themselves with instrument.
‘We need not to stigmatize this instrument, we are only nailing the coffin by continued labeling of local music genres to ritual activities’ says Takunda Mafika, musicologist and an nyunga nyunga player.
Warara Jefinias
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