Picture this: Sakubva township, Mutare, sometime in the late 1980s. The sun is dipping behind the Christmas Pass hills, the air thick with the smell of sadza cooking on open fires and the sharp tang of maputi roasting on a brazier. I am nine or ten years old, barefoot as usual, clutching a 20-cent coin my mother gave me for tomatoes.
I weave through the narrow dusty paths between the houses, past women winnowing maize seeds and men arguing about Dynamos versus Highlanders. It leaks from every open window, thumps from battered radios balanced on window sills, spills out of the shebeens where men in overalls nurse scud and shake. The guitars are galloping, the bass is running ahead like it is late for a bus, and someone is always shouting “Chema!” or “Bass!” as if the instruments themselves are alive.
That was my childhood soundtrack. Sungura was not background noise. It was the heartbeat of the ghetto.
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I remember the first time I saw a real band live. It was at Sakubva Stadium. John Chibadura was on stage with the Tembo Brothers.
The crowd was a sea of pressed shirts and headscarves, bodies moving in that unmistakable sungura shuffle, feet sliding, hips rolling, no-one ever lifting their heels too high off the ground. Chibadura’s voice floated over everything, telling stories of love gone wrong and landlords who would not fix leaking roofs. I stood on a crate someone had pushed against the wall just so small boys like me could see.
I did not understand every word, but I felt every note in my chest. Years later, when I started asking questions about where this music came from, people always jumped straight to Alick Macheso. Baba Sharo.
And yes, he deserves every crown anyone has ever placed on his head. But every kingdom has a founding father, a quiet architect who laid the first stones. In sungura, that man is Ephraim Joe.
Let us go back to the beginning, to the years just before and after independence in 1980. The country was raw, electric with possibility.
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