Download Zimbabwean Gospel Music

This study examines the historical development, social, political and economic significance of gospel music in Zimbabwe. It approaches music with Christian theological ideas and popular appeal as a cultural phenomenon with manifold implications. Applying a history of religions approach to the study of a widespread religious phenomenon, the study seeks to link religious studies with popular culture. It argues that gospel music represents a valuable entry point into a discussion of contemporary African cultural production. Gospel music successfully blends the musical traditions of Zimbabwe, influences from other African countries, and musical styles from other parts of the world.

Through the application of multiple methodological lenses, the study sets out to describe, analyse and interpret gospel music in Zimbabwe during the 1990s. It outlines the historical development of popular music in Zimbabwe, alongside locating the emergence of gospel music in the politically and economically challenging 1990s. The report captures the impact of Christianity on music performances, highlights the various groups of cultural workers who have derived opportunities from gospel music and undertakes an analysis of the context in which gospel music was able to thrive. Through an examination of dominant themes in Zimbabwean gospel music and its creative appropriation of various musical styles, the study illustrates the complexity underlying contemporary African artistic products.

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This study also seeks to bring to the fore the long-standing issue of the relationship between Christianity and African culture. Although many African theologians, nationalists, missiologists, Non-Governmental Organisation activists and other practitioners have proffered valuable insights, in most instances their efforts have been vitiated by a preoccupation with a frozen view of African culture. Many writers have tended to view African culture as a relic from some glorious past. Although this may please avid cultural nationalists, it obfuscates the inherently adaptive nature of African, and indeed of any other, culture. Consequently, in this study the focus is on gospel music as an integral part of contemporary African culture. By examining gospel music texts, performances by artists and audiences at gospel concerts and television presentations, the study contributes to the discourses on religion and public spaces. The report also brings to the fore the neglected theme of music and the construction of religious and other identities.

As anyone who has traveled to Zimbabwe over the past ten years can attest, gospel music has become a ubiquitous element in the Zimbabwean soundscape. In shops, private homes, and the emergency taxis, gospel competes with more widely known styles of popular music for airspace and recognition. Yet the ever-expanding literature on Zimbabwean music and popular culture has made little mention of gospel's obvious importance to late twentieth-century Zimbabweans. Ezra Chitando attempts, and largely succeeds, to fill this gap with his recent text, Singing Culture. Chitando unites his previous experience as a scholar of religion with his more recent interest in popular culture to contextualize, historicize, and analyze gospel's place in Zimbabwean Christianity and popular music. Rather than focusing on specific performers, denominations, or time periods, Chitando provides a broad introduction to gospel music in Zimbabwe, its antecedents, and its religious significance. Despite its many strengths, his text pays too little attention to sound, relies too little on his interview data, and moves too quickly from one topic to the next. Aside from these minor concerns, this serves as a welcome addition to the study of Zimbabwean music and a sufficient introduction to gospel music in Zimbabwe.

Chitando's straightforward organization moves sensibly from his introduction and methodological framework to individual chapters on the history of music in Zimbabwe, the rise of gospel music, gospel's relationship with local disadvantaged groups, his own interpretation of gospel's increasing presence, and some concluding remarks on gospel's role in negotiating identity for many contemporary Africans. As mentioned throughout, Chitando seeks to apply historical, sociological, and phenomenological methods in his research. None of these methods is applied very rigorously but collectively they contribute to a broadly appealing work. He rejects stereotypical notions of African authenticity steeped in an ancestral past threatened by colonialism. Chitando successfully realizes this laudable goal by showing gospel's increasing significance for a range of Zimbabweans. He contends that "gospel music has created alternative space for social groups that had been rendered invisible" (p. 6), referring to women and young people. His attention to women and the unique performance space gospel creates for them is one of the more successful themes Chitando addresses.

In chapter 2, Chitando reflects on his own framework and techniques of interpretation. He addresses the importance of sociology, history, and phenomenology in turn. However, he draws little from the literature of continental phenomenology and rarely explains his own use. He attends to an impressive range of sources and addresses the important role of individual churches, the recording industry, related trends in Zimbabwean popular music, political relevance, and the important influence of key individuals. He has interviewed many of gospel's most important performers, including Charles and Olivia Charamba, Machanic Manyeruke, Zexie Manatsa, Shuvai Wutawunashe, and others. Yet, despite this breadth, there is very little depth. I waited for his interviews with Charamba and Manyeruke with anticipation, but neither appeared as much more than confirmation of his larger points.

Chitando's historical overview is unlike most accounts of Zimbabwean music because of its privileged attention to the church, as well as the development of commercialization in Zimbabwe and the changing role of women in musical performance. His summary of pre-colonial styles and indigenous styles is cursory, often conflated, and he strangely laments the lack of literature on rural Zimbabwean music. While there are certainly gaps in the literature, several excellent works on indigenous musical styles in Zimbabwe do exist. His claim that "a major limitation in the literature available on music is the preoccupation with the urban history of music in Zimbabwe" (p. 28) is incongruous with the body of work on the mbira and drumming traditions, as is his admission that his own text is based entirely on work in Harare.[1]

He re-addresses certain orthodoxies that are a welcome alternative to common knowledge about music in Zimbabwe. For one, he suggests that Shona society is not as patriarchal as typically thought, but historically has included women in several important domestic and spiritual roles. He also claims, provocatively, that "musicians from a Shona cultural background were not traumatized by the experience of colonialism" (p. 26). Chitando's strength here lies in his appraisal of churches and their impact. Musically, he suggests that church choirs were essential to introducing ideas of talent, inventing understandings of the audience, and introducing new instruments like the guitar and piano. However, his interest in Christian music and his determination to make contemporary Zimbabwean identities vibrant and relevant lead him to trivialize alternative views. As he says, "African music could no longer be viewed in terms of its communal and spiritual value: the forces of urbanization and commercialization now required creative packaging and marketing strategies" (p. 35), a somewhat exaggerated dismissal of music's continued spiritual salience in many Zimbabwean communities. Despite this, he successfully documents the role Christianity played during Zimbabwe's colonial era, the well-documented war of independence, and the rise in commercialization, setting the stage for his subsequent analysis of gospel's rise and importance.

Chitando gets to the heart of his book in chapter 4 with an examination of gospel's rise, dominance, and thematic material. This is Chitando's most successful and enjoyable chapter. He addresses gospel's historical antecedents, early pioneers, and rise in prominence during the 1990s. His attention to gospel's early pioneers, such as Jordan Chataika and Machanic Manyeruke, is especially rewarding. Chitando suggests that gospel's increasing popularity is connected to musicians' incorporation of sungura stylistic features, thus connecting gospel's trajectory with that of Zimbabwe's popular music industry--a subtle, yet crucial, point.[2] During these formative years, gospel incorporated influences from a wide range of musical and ideological sources. Chitando implies a dialectical relationship between gospel artists' attempts at pan-Christian ecumenism and their interest in expanding their own audiences. Musicians' desires for popularity and their recognition of music-industry pressures demanding mass appeal partially contribute to the expression of consistent themes in gospel. More data from the recording industry and direct commentary from gospel singers would have enriched these conclusions. Chitando's analysis of gospel themes is thorough yet frustrating. He suggests that gospel's rise in popularity is closely connected to Zimbabwe's own deteriorating social situation. Gospel artists sing about salvation, death, heaven and earth, economic struggles, ethics and morality, prosperity, ecumenism, and national sentiment. As Zimbabweans struggle with political corruption, economic hardship, and the growing threat of AIDS, gospel provides an alternative vision that suggests solutions rather than merely accounting for problems. I found much of Chitando's analysis here provocative and suggestive. Unfortunately, his "textual" analysis looks primarily at the themes suggested in titles. When Chitando does examine passages of text, his conclusions are much more convincing. 17dc91bb1f