My wonderful wife and I just returned from a concert performance by Thomas Mafumo & the Blacks Unlimited at the local JC.

I can’t say that I had heard of Mapfumo before today but I have already come to admire him as a person and as a musician

Mapfumo is from Zimbabwe and grew up there when it was still white-ruled Rhodesia. During the ‘60s he began performing in popular music venues imitating the British/American styles of Elvis, etc.

By the ‘70s he had created his own musical synthesis combining various musical styles around a form of music indigenous to his Shona tribal culture. Central to this music was the spiritual, circular melodies created by the mdima, more commonly known as a finger harp.

The black Marxist rebels seeking the overthrow of the Ian Smith government captured his vision of freedom. The guerrilla forces were called chimurenga (Shona for “struggle”) and Mapfumo began calling his new sound “chimurenga music.”

According to notes on his life found at www.afropop.org, "Mapfumo had become a national hero by singing theme songs for a revolution, his deeper message was really about culture, not politics."

At tonight’s concert, Mapfumo introduced his music in this way: "My music is about freedom. That is all I have to say about my music. It is about freedom."

Having seen the demise of one oppressor and having celebrated the liberation of his country, Mapfumo found himself, by the late 1990s, becoming increasingly critical of the rapidly totalitarian rule of Mugabe. At times his songs were banned outright by the government and, after the opposition party unexpectedly did well in a national election, the government began harassing Mapfumo, including filing false criminal charges against him.

In 2000, Mapfumo took his family to Oregon where he now lives in a sort of self-imposed exile. He occasionally returns to Zimbabwe to perform for his many fans. According to Afropop his songs have, "Decried alcoholism, AIDS (several of his original band members died from this), domestic violence, and people’s devotion to foreign things — all prices that Mapfumo felt Zimbabweans had paid for abandoning their ancient culture."

Since Mugabe, whose iron-clad rule has completely destroyed Zimbabwe’s economy and social structure, is celebrating his birthday this week with a lavish party tomorrow (Saturday) I was curious what, if anything, Mapfumo might have to say about him.

What he said, as an introduction to one of his songs, was this: "This song is about dictators...  like Robert Mugabe of my own country, Zimbabwe... when a man like that dies... the world rejoices."