|
Back to Index
Censorship
of locally recorded music in Zimbabwe
Emmanuel
Vori, Gramma Records Marketing Director
May 12, 2005
http://www.freemuse.org/sw9318.asp
*This article was
written in connection with a seminar on Music Censorship in Zimbabwe held
on April 28, 2005, at Mannenberg Jazz Club in Harare.
Censorship,
both voluntary and forced has been part of the local recording industry
in Zimbabwe from its early beginnings in the mid seventies and is still
part of the industry even up to the present day.
There
are two common types of censorship. The one is political and the other
is based on morals.
Political
Politically there has been censorship before and after independence. During
the pre–independence era, most bands / musicians performed and recorded
music which either encouraged youths and indeed the population at large
to join the liberation struggle or that which gave moral support to those
already engaged in the struggle. This was meant to boost the morale of
the fighters so that there would be no turning back until final victory.
This
development did not go down well with the authorities. Their first move
was to deny exposure of such songs by banning them from the airwaves,
both on radio and television. This was made easy because they controlled
that media. In the absence of independent radio, these songs were never
played. However they did not stop them from being sold on the market.
Musicians,
working with local record companies went ahead and recorded more such
songs and made them available to the public. The popular format then was
vinyl. Record companies had an obligation to offer to the public what
the musicians had composed without "diluting" those compositions.
The choice of whether or not a particular song would be recorded or not,
from the record company’s point of view, depended on its appeal to the
masses and of course its sales potential. There were however, some cases
were the producers advised artists to "tone down" their lyrical
content if it was perceived to be hitting too hard on the targeted group
which in almost all cases was the sitting government and its puppets.
While
almost all artists were affected by this censorship, those affected the
most were people like Thomas Mapfumo, Zacks Manatsa, Tineyi Chikupo,
and Oliver Mtukudzi among others whose music was perceived to incite
the general populace to take up arms against the colonial masters.
In
one of his songs 'Tumira Vana Kuhondo' translated "sending children
to war", Thomas Mapfumo warned the colonial masters that they
would lose their loved young men and women as the majority were going
continue fighting and killing them until final victory. On one of his
many such compositions, Zuvaguru, Thomas sang about the big day when the
truth would be there for all to see ie. victory was certain and the majority
were going to celebrate the arrival of independence. These and other songs
led to his arrest and brief detention at Chikurubi Maximum Prison where
he was later released without being charged. This made Thomas more determined
to record and release more hard hitting songs which calumniated in the
recording of a full length album entitled Hondo meaning WAR. Needless
to say that none of the songs from that album were ever played on national
radio. As an artist, Thomas never allowed his compositions to be voluntarily
censored in the studios. He felt very strongly about his works. His record
label obliged because Thomas was very popular and almost all his recordings
sold very well.
Independence
ushered in a new era of political censorship. In the mid eighties musicians,
who always seem to be the "voice of the voiceless", the masses,
spoke up against the political leadership for its failure to fulfil promises
made during the pre-independence era. They saw corruption creeping in
and going on unchecked, neglect of the masses, deteriorating health services
and many other social ills. Like before, they spoke through recorded music.
Record labels took the risk of releasing such songs. Once again Thomas
Mapfumo was in the fore front of this campaign. When requested by his
record label to change some of the lyrics on his most critical song "Corruption"
Thomas refused flatly and opted instead to go independent and have total
control of his compositions. He went on to record and release Corruption
on a 12 inch. Interestingly, he sang it in English so that his targeted
audience would not be in doubt of the message he was sending to both the
officials and the nation and the world at large. He lamented the fact
that society was corrupt specially those in positions of power and this
had filtered down to the masses causing untold suffering to the man on
the street. Since then Thomas has remained independent. Because he had
exposed many heavyweights, Thomas feared for his life and went into self-imposed
exile in the USA.
Lovemore
Majaivana in his song Umoya Wami lamented about the lack of development
in Matebeleland which had driven its young men and women to other areas
in search of fortune yet they would rather work and live in their beloved
province. He pleaded with Joshua Nkomo to re – visit the Unity - Accord
as it had not and continued not to benefit his own people – the Ndebeles.
Solomon
Skuza on JSCI sang about what was later referred to as the Willowgate
scandal which exposed a lot of high ranking officials in a car buying
scandal – only they and their mates had access to new locally assembled
cars which they bought and on sold to desperate car seekers at exorbitant
prices..
Leonard
Zhakata on one of his many protest songs sang about how justice seemed
to favour the chosen few. How there seemed to be different laws for different
groups of people and how those same laws seemed to favour those aligned
to the ruling party and their associates.
Oliver
Mtukudzi sang about one having to accept that they are indeed old
and tired. That was interpreted by the powers that be to mean that the
President and most of his colleagues were old and should go.
In
all of the above cases, the record labels did not interfere with the lyrical
content though naturally they were worried about what Government’s reaction
would be. These works were never played on radio and television.
Morals
The other form of censorship in Zimbabwe is based on morals. In the absence
of a censor board, record labels have acted as guardians of society’s
moral values. Whilist sex and violence, drugs (as in hip hop / rap) is
said to drive sales of music that would, for now, not be acceptable in
our society which is by all standards, very conservative. To this end,
songs that are deemed to contain offensive / obscene language are not
recorded at all. In most cases artists have had to change such lyrics
to an acceptable standard. One such case was the late Paul Matavire’s
Tanga Wandida. In the song Paul was talking about how it has become like
the norm for men to ask for sexual favours before they could do things
for women like offering them employment, making available scarce commodities
etc. Another notable example was the Four Brothers’ Vimbai. The artist
was describing the physical beauty of his loved one to the point it got
very explicit and had to be changed to at least be acceptable in keeping
with our traditional values.
With
international music, record labels seem to allow anything to be recorded
and made available for sale as long as it is "stickered" i.e.
Parental Advisory – Explicit Lyrics. Whilist local record companies have
no control over such material, they have adopted a strict stickering policy
of such music i.e. if it is not stickered already so that whoever buys
that music buys with the full knowledge that it contains explicit lyrics.
In
Zimbabwe total freedom of expression, both politically and socially, is
not likely to happen anytime soon. It will be many years before our artists
and indeed the nation as a whole can speak freely about how they see things
and express themselves freely without fear of the law of the land.
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
