Two legends of African music will visit Boston next weekend. And, while both concerts promise excellent music, they offer a valuable glimpse of history in the making with two contrasting images of ancient Africa in modern guise — the pop-singer-turned-cultural-icon and the cultural-icon-turned-pop-singer. Thomas Mapfumo, once the champion of Zimbabwe’s independence struggle and now a thorn in the side of the very leaders he helped bring to power, returns to the House of Blues on February 15 and 16, hot on the heels of an intrepid concert tour through his embattled homeland. Then, on February 17, at the Somerville Theatre, Mali’s Kandia Kouyaté will perform as part of her first-ever tour of the US. Despite the financially strapped milieu of African music, Kouyaté is so hugely successful in traditional circles back home that it has taken nearly two decades to persuade her to assemble a touring band and hit the road internationally.
Deadly violence marks Zimbabwe today, as it approaches a hotly contested presidential election next month. After seeing his music restricted from national radio play, having vehicles confiscated from his home by a vengeful government, and enduring threats of violence against him and his family, Mapfumo reluctantly moved his family to Eugene, Oregon, in the summer of 2000. He returned to Zimbabwe briefly at the end of that year, but then spent nearly all of 2001 in exile — by far his longest absence since he began singing rock-and-roll covers in the townships of then–Southern Rhodesia in 1962. Mapfumo has had many run-ins with political authorities over the years, but the most recent ones have been particularly frightening. During his absence last year, the government officials prepared trumped-up charges against him concerning those confiscated vehicles (they claimed the cars were stolen), passed draconian laws aimed at silencing media critics, and ramped up a general campaign of intimidation through nationwide beatings and even murders.
In the midst of all this, Mapfumo released a new album called Chimurenga Rebel (not yet available internationally), which levels his harshest condemnations of the ruling party’s tactics to date. It included songs like "Marima Nzara" ("You Are Inviting Hunger"), a direct attack on President Robert Mugabe’s policy of invading white farms. If you chase away the farmers, the song says, the people will starve. Then there is "Huni Huni." "‘Huni Huni’ says, don’t mess around with the people," Mapfumo explained last week from his home in Oregon. "Because the people can actually put you out of power." Just weeks after the release of Chimurenga Rebel, Mapfumo stepped off the plane in the capital of Harare with his band. "I was a bit concerned," he admitted, "but I wasn’t afraid. I knew a lot of ears were listening. When we arrived, a lot of people welcomed us at the airport. There were the guys from ZBC television and they interviewed me. I told them that my music was for peace, and what I’m actually singing about is a reality. So they cut it off." He chuckled mischievously. "They had to keep some good parts, and then where I was a bit critical, they had to just leave that out."
More ominously, Mapfumo is convinced that state-run radio — the only kind that exists legally in Zimbabwe — wasn’t playing the album. "It was banned," he said. "And this I can confirm with you, because I spoke with one of the DJs who is working with ZBC, and he said they were called to a meeting by the minister of information, Jonathan Moyo. They discussed about my music, and he was saying, ‘This is why this guy named his music Chimurenga Rebel, because he’s a rebel. He’s just like a terrorist.’"
Mapfumo experienced a little government-style terrorism when visiting his family’s rural home outside of Harare. A group of young men approached his car in a shopping-center parking lot and interrogated him, asking to see the card that would prove he was a member of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF political party. "So I said to these youngsters, ‘Who are you? How dare you ask me about a Zanu-PF card?’" he recalled. "Then I actually produced my pistol, and these youngsters ran away." It didn’t end there, as police followed the car and demanded to see a license for the gun, eventually confiscating it and forcing Mapfumo to return to Harare and produce paperwork.
Nevertheless, Mapfumo described the visit as "exciting," especially the five huge concerts he played, including a New Year’s Eve bash at a tobacco auction floor in Harare that drew nearly 10,000 fans. Despite the lack of media promotion, Chimurenga Rebel reportedly sold out the initial lot of 30,000 copies in less than two days. Mapfumo believes that no amount of intimidation, censorship, legislation, or vote-rigging can stem the tide against Mugabe’s regime. As he put it, "Everyone is saying, ‘We will meet at the polling station.’"
The band Mapfumo will bring to Boston is larger than the small ensemble that performed at Sanders Theatre last fall. That group, which featured the Shona hand-piano called mbira, will be filled out by a brass section, bass, drums and percussion, a keyboard player, and a new lead guitarist, Zivayi Guveya, replacing the great Joshua Dube, who died in Zimbabwe last fall. The program will include songs from Chimurenga Rebel.
MALI, HOME OF SINGER KANDIA KOUYATÉ, feels blessedly tranquil and timeless in comparison with Zimbabwe’s current pressure cooker. When I lived in Mali studying the music of the Manding griots (hereditary musicians and oral historians), I often heard Kouyaté’s voice, although not on commercial recordings. It was more likely to circulate on cassettes recorded at the homes of wealthy patrons. From such patrons, Kouyaté has received gold bars, stacks of money, automobiles, and on one memorable occasion, an airplane, so that she could fly to the patron’s village and sing for him. No surprise that the hardscrabble life of hawking commercial cassettes and performing in halls and nightclubs, let alone touring internationally, held little appeal for her. Kouyaté was on her way to being what Malians call a "ngara" — a master singer and historian, fearless social critic, and keeper of occult secrets — rather than a mere "vedette," or pop star.
Ironically, Kouyaté got her professional start singing in her uncle’s Manding-pop group, the Apollo Band, which was all the rage at Bamako street parties in the ’70s. Although her father was a Manding griot and her mother a singer of Bambara and Fula music, Kouyaté never had any encouragement at home in her pursuit of music. The upside of that is that she, unlike many of today’s Malian divas, went to school and learned to read and write. But her enormous musical talent was evident early on, hence the move to Bamako and the gig with the Apollo Band.
Kouyaté was married at 18 to a griot who died four years later. She then fell under the wing of her mother-in-law Tapa Soumano, a wise mentor figure who taught her, as she told British writer and musicologist Lucy Duran, "the secret arts of the griot." Kouyaté has a long-standing reputation for spending time with elders, particularly older griots from the culturally rich towns of Kita and Kayes. This is why her performances have such cultural depth, and one reason why she fared so extraordinarily well in the world of griot patronage. The other reason, of course, is her magnificent contralto voice, huge and warm, capable of majestic certainty and brooding thoughtfulness.
In 1999, Kouyaté at last produced an international release, Kita Kan (Stern’s Africa). West Africa’s preeminent producer Ibrahima Sylla organized the effort with guitarist Ousmane Kouyaté, of Salif Keita fame, arranging the music. The album is lush and varied. Three tracks make daring use of a Western bowed-string section, interacting with the plucked strings of traditional Manding music. Two delve into the funky Bambara pentatonic music, unusual territory for a griotte. There is a playful dash of the breezy, soukous-flavored Manding pop that more commercially minded griottes like Ami Koita and Nainy Diabaté have championed. Kita Kan is a class act in every way.
Kouyaté’s lyrics include obligatory griot praise, but part of the role of a ngara is to speak truth bravely, even when it flies in the face of power. In that spirit, she addresses subjects like the tragedy of arranged marriages, where love is thwarted and women sold into effective slavery by their elders. Since recording Kita Kan, Kouyaté has participated in an album of songs condemning female genital mutilation, still sadly common in Mali. This is an extremely controversial subject, but Kouyaté does not mince words. "Let’s say, ‘No, we refuse,’" she urges on her track.
Kouyaté comes to Boston straight from the recording studio in Abidjan, where she’s been preparing a second international release under Sylla’s direction. A footnote: Kouyaté did once sing in Boston in 1988, accompanied only by a kora (harp) and balafon (xylophone) as part of Africa Oyé, a touring showcase of traditional music. In that spare presentation, her brief appearance delivered a spiritually charged jolt that few who saw it will forget. Now, we will see the mature Kandia Kouyaté, with all her contradictions and complexities. Given the opportunities that await her back in Mali, it might be a good long while before we get this chance again.
Thomas Mapfumo plays at the House of Blues this Friday and Saturday, February 15 and 16. Call (617) 497-2229. Kandia Kouyaté plays at the Somerville Theatre this Sunday, February 17. Call (617) 876-4275.
