02/11/2023
BLACK UMFOLOSI – READY TO ROLL @41 ! - FRI 3 NOV, 6PM, BULAWAYO THEATRE - Black Umfolosi Music The Bulawayo Theatre
In this week leading up to their big day, preparations for BLACK UMFOLOSI CELEBRATIONS are well in hand, with leader Sotsha Moyo and the group primed and ready to deliver a top-class performance at the Bulawayo Theatre on Friday 3 Nov, 6pm, in celebration of 41 years of incredible music - from Bulawayo to the world.
The Black Umfolosi act is tight, seamless, with perfect harmonies and well-synchronised dance steps performed with high energy, and pure joy and pride in their shared heritage shining through. Their repertoire, which veers from lively leaps and whistles to smooth melodies, has engaged and enthralled audiences around the world.
Starting out in the early days of Zimbabwe's independence with 7 strong male voices, they have since travelled the world on a regular annual touring schedule, evolving along the way, and now in the format of 8 singers including the addition of younger members and the beautiful voices of young women now enhancing the Imbube music with sweet harmonies in the higher vocal register.
Black Umfolosi have always led the way in revolutionising Imbube and taking it to another level and new direction - from its early development through warriors, miners, and beer-drinkers, to a professional staged art, honed and perfected for both local and international platforms, where they have been well received since the 80s, and a proud part of their vivid Intangible heritage - and legacy for the future.
On the international stage they became in such high demand that they spent more time travelling than performing at home. The market kept growing to the point where Black Umfolosi has toured on all the continents, performing in many countries: in Africa and beyond, from Europe to the US and Canada, Malaysia to the Caribbean - and the group continue to be invited back again, up to the present day.
A Living Heritage
The year 2023 also marks 20th anniversary of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, adopted in 2003. Black Umfolosi are already ahead in the process of passing the baton to the next generation.
Sotsha explains that Imbube was previously dominated by men only because of the environment from which it grew - the battleground, the mines, the beerhalls, but it was never strictly confined to men only. Interestingly, Black Umfolosi all have daughters, and it is so fitting and in perfect sync with changing times that women are now stepping up to Imbube, with the bar set at the high level by their fathers.
Joining the remaining elders of the group Sotsha Moyo and Austin Chisare, are their daughters Luzibo and Lulamile Moyo and Judy Chisare. Another daughter of an original member, the late Benia Phuti, is Boitumelo who works on the admin side, being groomed to handle bookings and contracts, travel arrangements and perhaps management some day.
Luzibo, the eldest, says it is inevitable for the young women to be drawn to Imbube, which surrounded them all their lives, as well as other genres their parents enjoyed in the home: diverse African music traditions, as well as reggae, R&B, soul. She values the protective guidance into the music world by their fathers, and especially the support of the mothers who recognised the creative spark in the daughters and encourage them to access the opportunity to reach the potential they saw within them.
Luzibo declares that women too had songs sung in their own environment - harvesting in fields, washing clothes by rivers - with their own stories to be told. And she is pleased to be carrying women's voices and stories to the world through Imbube. She went on her first Black Umfolosi overseas tour in 2022, a 5-month stretch which included the UK, USA and Canada. While she had expected a good response knowing the groups history and reputation, she was surprised to realise how their music was able to transcend across oceans in this purest form, and how much people welcome and appreciate an authentic African experience. At home Black Umfolosi are widely acknowledged by both fans and fellow artists as cultural ambassadors of Zimbabwe since the 80s, well before many other Zimbabwean artists and groups started branching out into the world.
Protection and Promotion of Intangible Cultural Heritage ---
Black Umfolosi recorded 14 albums between 1990 and 2023, and Sotsha himself has recorded 8 solo offerings all in his Mother tongue, Kalanga, in an offshoot project of the company dedicated to preserving and promoting the language, for which he feels a responsibility.
From an awe-inspiring performance on the Nyanga Arts Festival stage at the opposite end of the country in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands nearly a thousand kilometres from their home city of Bulawayo last weekend, performing for a crowd of well over a thousand people in rural Nyanga, Black Umfolosi is now ready for their big anniversary celebration at Bulawayo Theatre in the City of Kings.
The 8-member cast performing at the Anniversary celebration on Friday 3 November will be comprised of Sotsha Moyo, Austin Chisare, Luzibo T Moyo, Judy Chisare, Witness T Dube, Zenzo Hlaseka, Thandeka Moyo, Lulamila Q Moyo, and introducing at the finale, young members who are still learning and growing in the Black Umfolosi training programme: Bukhosi Mlotshwa, Lumbie Moyo, Lebani Moyo, and Spu Chisare.
NHIMBE TRUST are proud to have hosted the group at the Nyanga Arts Festival, and to witness their continued growth and success.
