On my bookshelf | African Music, Power, and Being in Colonial Zimbabwe, by Mhoze Chikowero

By wazup on April 22, 2024 Comments Closed / 45 views

Takura Donald Makoni

Policy officer for the African and Caribbean Support Organisation Northern Ireland

This is an exploration into Zimbabwe’s spiritual and literal journey through the artistic musical expressions of many generations before and after settler colonialism. Mhoze Chikowero takes the reader through the instruments of subjugation used by colonisers, against the backdrop of resistance in traditional and cultural expression in music.

A book cover showing a sepia photograph of two older Black men, one playing a harmonica-like instrument — Chikowero’s book describes the complex history of African music in relation to African politics since the late 19th century

This complex history of music, colonialism, and African self-liberation begins in the 1890s, recounting missionary crusades against African performative cultures and African students being inducted into mission bands, which contextualise the music of segregated urban and mining company dance halls in the 1930s.

The author builds lineages of the Chimurenga music later made fashionable by guerrilla artists. Chikowero shows how Africans deployed music and indigenous knowledge systems to fight for freedom from British colonial domination and to assert cultural sovereignty.

This book has informed my work in decolonisation in museums. As a Zimbabwean living abroad, I often see the cultures of the Global South analysed from a western perspective.

I am proud to read African narratives by African academics – this has a positive impact on the Global South community being able to see themselves represented authentically.