Thomas Mapfumo: Legend.

December 17, 2023
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I’m sure Thomas Mapfumo, born in 1945 in Zimbabwe, would have had no idea how much of an impact he would have on his community through his love for music. He grew up to love music, ultimately having a big impact on his own culture, with the mbira instrument. He played what they call “struggle” music with instruments such as the mbira, and he ended up inprisoned for it by his own government.

His music and him as a person had a great impact on his community. “He has long sought to be a musician who speaks to all, with a universal message of empowering the poor and voiceless and uplifting African traditions.” He was all about being the role model and using the voice that he knew he had all along. Being well respected in his community was one of the many titles that he had, but he always came back to the title of musician. A historical event that had an effect on Thomas Mapfumo was that he was put into jail in the 1970’s because of the music that he was performing. The governments reasoning for throwing him in jail was he was performing songs that had to do with him trying to stand up for the white rule that was going on at that time. He was let out of jail because he played his music at a rally for the co-leader of the state that he was living in, which is ridiculous.

Even after he got out of jail, he had kept going after the leaders of the country, who he felt like we’re not doing their country right. The government was still super hard on him, and their relationship only continued to get worse. It got so bad that in 2000, he ended up moving him and his family to Portland, Oregon, where they could start a new life in a new country.

Works Cited

Eyre, Banning. Lion Songs: Thomas Mapfumo and the Music That Made Zimbabwe. Duke University Press, 2015. read.dukeupress.edu, https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822375425.

Mapfumo, Thomas | Encyclopedia.Com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/mapfumo-thomas. Accessed 15 Dec. 2023.

Marara, Luke. “The Significance of Thomas Mapfumo’s Protest Music in Zimbabwe’s Colonial and Postcolonial Struggles (1963-2001).” Master’s thesis, Miami University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1682699475706453.

Eyre, Bannning. “Thomas Mapfumo and the Popularization of Shona Mbira.” African Music 10, no. 1 (2015): 84–101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24877334.

“Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited.” Real World Records, https://realworldrecords.com/artists/thomas-mapfumo-the-blacks-unlimited/. Accessed 15 Dec. 2023.