Critical Theory Archives

A church type from the countryside sneaks out of Zupco, his place in life disagreeably summarised by the catapult around his neck and the apostolic badge on his pocket. He looks around as if flustered by city lights and is, in fact, soon blown away by one: an uptown sweetheart called Mebo who chooses him over her unimpressed digital-vixen friends. With the rest of story, Obert Chari, the Romeo who got away with treason against the capitalist laws of love, ably debuts atop the National FM 2018 chart and crowns it all with a Nama (2019) Song of the Year nomination. “Mebo” is an instant classic that, along with Winky D’s “MuGarden”, Jah Prayzah’s “Chengetedza” and Pah Chihera’s “Runonzi Rudo” invites us to think anew love and art in a time of alienation. Even if Chari does not sweep the Namas...

Early hours, when sun and song awaken the privileged to earth’s delights, and mellow vistas spread out, leaders may be surprised to know what it takes to endure life away from their vastly diverting luxuries. For then everyone must head away from the impartiality of dreams, each to a familiar course, to consolidate privilege or to gasp for survival in the politically commissioned inferno of poverty. Human suffering is the heart of the matter when leaders need to enhance their audience ratings, and the political calendar makes it convenient to feign alliance with the masses, but often that is all that it is – an election device. Any other day, poverty is the default address of the povo. Poverty stretches the circuit in blogosphere, civic activism and scholarship, sometimes the fad of th...

Critical Theory

Mebo, Winky D and Karl Marx

Burial of the Living