Oliver Mtukudzi: Living Tuku Music in Zimbabwe
Indiana University Press (304 pages)
Oliver Mtukudzi – often known simply as ‘Tuku’ – is a living legend of Zimbabwean music, both within the country and out. His unique mix of traditional Shona styles, soul, jive and South African music consistently defies any other categorisation than simply ‘Tuku music’, and his lyrics have spoken to the hearts of several generations of listeners in Zimbabwe.
With this book, Kyker gives an account of Mtukudzi’s musical life, but to call it a biography would be misleading. While it does take a mostly chronological journey through Tuku’s story, it uses his life and music as a jumping-off point to talk about the role of music across various facets of Zimbabwean social life and history.
The major theme of Living Tuku Music in Zimbabwe is the Shona concept of hunhu – the idea of personal identity based on communality and constant renegotiation, or in Tuku’s words, “being a person among others”. Due to the depth and poetry of Tuku’s music and lyrics, his songs can be interpreted in a multitude of ways, often leading to different groups taking away different messages, even if they are the opposite to Tuku’s stated intent. As such, each chapter focuses on a specific topic (such as politics, HIV/AIDS, the Zimbabwean diaspora), which is then viewed through the dual lens of Mtukudzi’s songs and his audiences’ interpretations of them, demonstrating the hunhu inherent in his music.
As an essentially ethnomusicological text, the theoretical extrapolations and dense technical language may be off-putting for some readers, but there isn’t too much of this to render it completely opaque. Scattered throughout are plentiful lyrics, interviews, photographs and other assorted miscellanea, which provide nice breaks in the wall of words. This is a work that has been in the making for 13 years (including nine years of research), and Kyker has created a thoroughly fascinating book.