|
Back to Index
Interview with Oliver Mtukudzi
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula, Pambazuka News
March 05, 2009
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/54571
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: I requested this interview because music
is such an integral part of life in Africa, the message we get from
it affects the day to day life of people in Africa . . .
Oliver
Mtukudzi: That is the purpose of singing a song actually,
the message that people get. You do not sing if you have nothing
to say.
Role
of artist
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: What would you say then is the role of
the artist in today's Africa?
Oliver
Mtukudzi: An artist is a cultural maintenance person, represents
a culture and, the easiest form of the deliverance of messages.
That is why in Africa we sing at funerals and weddings. The most
important thing is to deliver the message.
Twisting
of culture
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: In one of your interviews, the one on
San Francisco in 2000, whilst talking about ‘Paivepo',
two issues came up that I found very interesting. What I call ‘the
bastardization of the word culture' and ‘Kugarwa nhaka'.[1]
You argue that instead of people following the way this practice
is supposed to be, they are twisting it. Is this a prevalent problem
in Africa now?
Oliver
Mtukudzi: Yes. That is why I picked this issue for the
song. Many people are taking advantage of the cultural laws, twisting
them just to suit themselves. Inheritance does not mean taking over
even the wife. It is taking over of the responsibility. If you are
in love with your brother's wife, then you have to propose
afresh. It was a rule that was designed to mean well but because
are twisting it to suit ourselves, we are taking advantage of women.
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: This is a very topical issue to discuss
even here in Malawi. I would say one of the problems we are currently
facing in various Malawian communities is the abuse of the word/concept
‘culture' to further personal agendas and/or avoid confronting
the problems we are facing.
Oliver
Mtukudzi: Culture has nothing to do with your everyday
living, tradition has. Our culture is not inferior to other cultures.
The problem is the people who are twisting cultural and traditional
laws to suit their needs of the day.
Man
as head of the family?
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: One of the issues you have dealt with
in your songs is the ‘head' of the family issue. Who
is the head of the family to you and how do you define family?
Oliver
Mtukudzi: I am trying to reassert our culture, the African
culture. I hate to see the African culture die off and yet we have
such a beautiful culture. The problems come because of the few who
take advantage of the culture since there is no fine for those who
violate it. In the African cultural sense, the man is the head of
the family in the sense that, he takes care of everything.
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: Everything?
Oliver
Mtukudzi: Yes, everything. But, men run away from that.
They become bossy. A good leader is not bossy. He is a good listener,
should listen to what the children are saying and come to terms
with the conditions.
Parents
and African pride
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: In your show in Washington, D.C., in
2006 which I was fortunate to attend, you seemed to have come with
an agenda for Africans in the diaspora to have pride in their identity;
you had a clear cultural identity agenda. You had the poet from
South Africa who eloquently attacked xenophobia, racism and sexism,
pushing forth a case for Africans to be proud of who they are in
America and wherever they are. Today's media bombards our
youth with messages that inscribe that America is the best; Africa
stands for failure, backwardness and darkness . . .
Oliver
Mtukudzi: The colour black is demonised.
Jessie Kabwila Kapasula:
Yes. How do you try to combat this problem in your songs? On television,
that is all that they watch in America, Africa and globally. This
feeling is so inscribed that when an African does something progressive,
in Shona, it is common to hear people say, ‘uyu murungu'
(she or he is a white/English person). In Chichewa they will say
‘uyu ndimzungu'. How do you tackle this problem?
Oliver
Mtukudzi: This is a problem but I do not blame the children
as much. I would blame the parents. I am also a parent but I blame
parents. Parents do not have time to know their children. They use
a television to bring up their children whilst they are doing their
own business. There are no more cultural structures like the ‘Tete'
(paternal aunt) for the girl child and ‘Sekuru' (paternal
uncle) for the boy child. All that is cancelled out. When I have
my own PhD, that is what my children are going to be when they grow
up, it is already decided. The children are made to feel inferior
to me and aspire to be like me. It all comes from home. As parents,
we do not realise that we are spoiling ourselves through our children.
We believe we are busy and we have to attain our professional goals.
But in the process, we forget that who we are is the best. No other
person can be a Malawian besides the Malawian. Then we take these
children to schools for the wrong reasons. We are sending them so
that we have time to do what we want to do. If everyday they do
well in their academics, we decide for them what they should be.
We do not look at the child and see what she can be, but impose
our failures on them. That alone is a challenge to our children.
What are we doing for our children? Are we leading by example? Are
we showing them who we are? Do they know who they are?
Grabbing
property from widows
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: In the 2003 interview, you are identified
as one of the people who are giving messages of political resistance
Zimbabwe. In my area of research, I have been fascinated by what
you did in the Neria project, especially when one reads that project
in line with other works of [Tsitsi] Dangarembga like Nervous Conditions
(1988). What was the main message you were hoping to help send out
to women in this project?
Oliver
Mtukudzi: Neria had done very well throughout Africa and
globally. I am humbled by how many times it is quoted in various
discussions.
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: In fact, it is part of the course I will
be teaching this fall in Binghamton University, New York, this semester.
Oliver
Mtukudzi: That is very good. What I was interested in bringing
out is the way we take advantage of being head of the family but
we do not take the responsibility that comes with being head of
the family. We are choosing what we will do and will not do. We
say this is okay, I can do that but I do not want to do that. The
idea of ‘Neria' was about inheritance and how this should
be done properly. What needs to be done by a responsible in a family?
Having a good family makes a good community; a good community makes
a good country. It is from that little space that things can be
set right, if you are fair to the family. The plot of Neria is that
the husband dies and the family turns against the widow. She is
not loved but taken advantage of by the family. Whatever she and
her husband had worked for is taken away. She and her husband worked
so hard but now it is all taken away. That is very unfair.
Objectifications
of women in popular songs
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: Recently, we have seen an increase of
African music that objectifies women. We have always had music that
portrays the dutiful wife, the long-suffering mother and subservient
and obedient wife. Recently, music by artists like ‘Mr Nice'
of Tanzania, Maji Maji Rising of Kenya and the ‘Chimwendo
Kulemera' hit here in Malawi, just to name a few, have portrayed
women as sex objects. Such songs go on to blame rape and the spread
of hiv and aids[2] on women, giving them the task of curbing this
disease. This trend is also prevalent in America amongst black American
music. DSTV Channel O has a prevalence of near-naked women versus
adequately dressed men. I have seen that your music videos do not
show women in such disempowered and compromised positions. Is this
intentional?
Oliver
Mtukudzi: Yes. This is an issue that is very dear to me.
This is the kind of media that is worrying not only your circles,
that of academia, but everyone, the human circles too. We know that
people are making money out of it. The spread of hiv/aids is should
not be blamed on women. No. Culturally, it is men who go for women,
not women going for men. So who do you think spreads the aids? It
is them, not the women.
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: So what do you think when you hear songs
that warn men ‘Chenjera akupatsa edzi!' (Be careful
she will give you aids)?
Oliver
Mtukudzi: I would say: ‘Be careful there is aids'
not she will give you aids. After all, men will never be careful
because of that warning.
Motherhood
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: Motherhood is one of the themes that
is persistent in your music. You have shown how important your own
mother is to you in several tracks. I know you have dedicated a
good number to her. The issue of motherhood is important and has
been taken on by many artists. However, there is often a tendency
to venerate one's biological mother and not see the mother
in one's own wife or daughter.
Oliver
Mtukudzi: Yes. That is true. For example, there is mother's
day. I have observed that if your mother is dead, you [an African
man] do not seem to have other mothers. Your own daughter is a mother.
The word mother translates to women. If people can understand that,
they will understand that that day was created for us to understand
the importance of a woman in our lives. Culturally, my wife is my
mother. That is why we say, ‘Eehe! Maita Amai. Dai pasina
imimi ndaiita sei? Ndinoyamwa pamuri Eehee!' (I am grateful
to you mother. If you were not there, what would I do? I suckle
from you). I am saying this to my wife, not my biological mother.
My son will also say that to her, who is also saying the same thing
to his wife. That is how it should be.
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: Listening to you, it seems you are convinced
that a good part of the problems African men and women are having
are because of a manipulation of a culture that had it right all
along?
Oliver
Mtukudzi: Yes. Yes. The problem is people who are misusing
it. You see, just misusing it and only when it will [be] of advantage
to them.
Conclusion
Jessie
Kabwila Kapasula: Thank you for talking to me, especially
because you have been one of my role models from a young age. I
started watching you from the age of 10. I even attended your wedding
at Gwanzura stadium in Harare, Zimbabwe. It is a pleasure to meet
you in person and help bring the valuable message that your music
has. All the best with the show you are having tonight.
Oliver
Mtukudzi: Thank you for talking to me.
* Oliver
Mtukudzi is a famous musician and cultural icon of Zimbabwean origin
who was a leading figure in the production of Tsitsi Dangarembga's
‘Neria'.
* Jessie Kabwila Kapasula is a Comparative Literature PhD student
at Binghamton State University of New York.
Notes
[1] Part of
a Shona cultural practice around inheritance, where a brother takes
over the family of a brother who has passed away. He takes over
the looking after of the family, including the assets. Mtukudzi
argues that the taking over of the widow is a manipulation of this
practice. This practice is not limited to the Shona of Zimbabwe,
it is also present in Mariama Ba's So Long A Letter.
[2] This text
does not capitalise the names of HIV and AIDS in a bid to emphasise
that while hiv and aids is real in Africa, they do not define the
people of Africa, who are living their lives heroically in the face
of such a chronic disease. Life is going on and Africa is not the
story of squalor, victimhood and dependency the Western media would
have us believe. It is an attempt to combat the ‘worlding'
problem that Spivak (1997) ably argues discourses on Africa and
other third world countries fall victim to when adopted in Western
discourse.
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
|
