Zimbabwe Archives - Fired Rock

Gemma Griffiths’ 10-Country Album-Writing Trip

24Oct

By Onai MushavaNo Comments

Music, Urban Grooves

Gemma Griffiths’ 10-Country Album-Writing Trip

Gemma Griffiths’ 10-Country Album-Writing Trip The Zimbabwean pop singer went off-grid and drove open-air through 10 African countries over 500 days to sponge inspiration for her debut EP, Pamwe (2020). Roughly translated “window of possibility,” Pamwe exploits the sunlit, breezy possibilities of Gemma’s 24 000-kilometer writing trip. By Mukoma Onai | October 24, 2025 When covid-19 turned musicians into internet personalities, Gemma Griffiths did not need a WiFi budget for her lockdown playbook. The Zimbabwean pop singer went off-grid and drove open-air through 10 African countries over 500 days to sponge inspiration for her debut EP, Pamwe (2020). Roughly translated “window of possibility,” Pamwe exploits the sunlit, breezy possibilities of Gemma’s 24 000-kilometer writing...

Syndicated Loverboy – Oliver Mtukudzi in Kwekwe

8Oct

By Onai MushavaNo Comments

Mbaqanga, Music

Syndicated Loverboy – Oliver Mtukudzi in Kwekwe

Syndicated Loverboy – Oliver Mtukudzi in Kwekwe Recent damning revelations about Zimbabwean superstar, Oliver Mtukudzi’s paternal negligence divided public opinion. This piece revisits the songs Tuku wrote in the heat of his family controversies and libertine adventures. What influence did Kwekwe have on his career over his decade there with his new family and an abused daughter from his first marriage. By Mukoma Onai | October 8, 2024 Oliver Mtukudzi slept with life and death in the same bed. A syndicated loverboy who can be credited with lifting his music to higher truth rather than bending it down to personal weakness. Maybe the most convincing preachers are not the ones who embody their message but those who preach the loudest bit to themselves. Artists are, after all, i...

Andrew Chatora on the Faultlines of Nation-Building

1May

By Onai MushavaNo Comments

Books

Andrew Chatora on the Faultlines of Nation-Building

Andrew Chatora on the Faultlines of Nation-Building Andrew Chatora’s 2023 novel, Harare Voices and Beyond, interrogates land, race and nationhood in Zimbabwe. Mukoma Onai picks apart the allegorical layers of the book. By Mukoma Onai | May 1, 2024 Andrew Chatora is a storyteller who hides his stakes in plain sight. The UK-based Zimbabwean novelist gives away the combustibles of his story at the earliest convenience but only names them as they go off in the endgame. Chatora’s books end with a twisted insight that questions our sense of detail and reflows what was already in our face from the beginning. In his debut novella, Diaspora Dreams, we cycle back from the kicker to make sense of the revelation, somehow hinted all along, that the narrator is writing from a menta...

Zimbabwean Writer Andrew Chatora Awarded for Land-Themed Novel in New York

5Feb

By Onai MushavaNo Comments

Books

Zimbabwean Writer Andrew Chatora Awarded for Land-Themed Novel in New York

Zimbabwean Writer Andrew Chatora Awarded for Land-Themed Novel in New York Andrew Chatora was recently awarded the Anthem Award for championing diversity, equity and inclusion in his work. Chatora’s winning novel, Harare Voices and Beyond, interrogates Zimbabwe’s land reform discourse as well as drug abuse, mental health crimes, crime and corruption. By Mukoma Onai | February 5, 2024 Zimbabwean writer Andrew Chatora was silver recipient at the Anthem Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion held in New York on January 30. A noted crusader of African immigrant literature based in the UK, Chatora was recognized for his 2023 novel, “Harare Voices and Beyond”. Chatora’s novel interrogates landreform discourse and race relations in Zimbabwe. Hollywood no...

Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya Revisits a Past under Erasure in “A Portrait of Emlanjeni”

3Aug

By Onai MushavaNo Comments

Books

Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya Revisits a Past under Erasure in “A Portrait of Emlanjeni”

Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya Revisits a Past under Erasure in "A Portrait of Emlanjeni" The idealised landscape of Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya’s new novel, A Portrait of Emlanjeni, is animated by the spirit of the people, their community ties and abiding regard for tradition. Ngwenya brings the indigenous and official justice systems into conversation, broadening them to make space for women. By Mukoma Onai | August 3, 2023 Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya’s fourth book, A Portrait of Emlanjeni, was recently published by UK-based Carnelian Heart Publishing. The novel, Ngwenya’s first in English, pays homage to an idealised landscape, its community ties and abiding attachment to tradition. Ngwenya’s teenage protagonists, Khethiwe, a survivor of sexual violence, and Zanele, who falls pregnant ...

13Jul

By Onai MushavaNo Comments

Mbaqanga, Music, Urban Grooves

Is Tocky Vibes the Next Tuku?

Is Tocky Vibes the Next Tuku? Most gatekeepers will jump at any parallel between Tocky and Tuku as blasphemy, so we may well oppose a little mathematics and history to their piety. By Onai Mushava | July 13, 2020 If Van Choga is a drunken dragon on the stage, then Tocky Vibes is an ecological event in the studio. During the "New Dispensation" alone, Mr Vibes has already released seven projects – five studio albums, an acoustic compilation and a singles collection – besides uploading videos more often than your crush’s photoshoots. But – though we could place Tocky Vibes against Van Choga’s energy or against Van Gogh’s authenticity – one question makes more overall sense: Is Tocky Vibes the next Oliver Mtukudzi? On his latest album, Dhongi neWaya, Tocky Vibes pays his...

25May

By Onai Mushava1 Comment

Music

Hokoyo Is a Great Zimbabwean Album

By Onai Mushava Jah Prayzah’s continental wars are well-known but after every battle is fought, an artist’s never-ending conflicts are against himself. Think of a musician as different splinter personalities in one room, each fighting for creative control. That is Jah Prayzah, the stage monster, the business strategist, the regional crusader, the cultural revivalist, and the vulnerable underdog. The best of these splinters have just won the latest round and recorded a great Zimbabwean album. Hokoyo, the new fifteen-track album, is Jah Prayzah’s tenth. It is not just a comeback from the uninspired Chitubu, but one of his most ambitious yet, alongside Tsviriyo, Jerusarema and Kutonga Kwaro. There are songs to make you feel and sounds that are as grounded in the Zimbabwean tradition as they...

27Apr

By Onai MushavaNo Comments

Books, History

Bill Saidi Was a Renaissance Man

Bill Saidi Was a Renaissance Man Bill Saidi was a proud and free spirit. He maintained a bare-knuckle approach to journalism, paid occasionally for standing in the way of power but became a presence wherever he turned. By Mukoma Onai, January 10, 2017 Bill Saidi was a proud and free spirit. He maintained a bare-knuckle approach to journalism, paid occasionally for standing in the way of power but became a presence wherever he turned. The black-and-white columnist mugshot with a Stalinist moustache arched above a stubborn smile had its day from Zimpapers to Modus Publications, ANZ and AMH. His stylish op-eds occupied real estate across the main stables as he pompously hopped from newsroom to newsroom like a journalism equivalent of Moses Chunga. Saidi had lost his ...

Bishop of Bohemia – Onai Mushava on Living the Poet’s Life

13Nov

By Onai MushavaNo Comments

Books

Bishop of Bohemia – Onai Mushava on Living the Poet’s Life

Bishop of Bohemia – Onai Mushava on Living the Poet’s Life Onai Mushava is one of the rising stars of Zimbabwean literature. He opens up on his influences, writing rituals and living the poet’s life in a wide-ranging interview with Givemore Manyenga. By Givemore Manyenga | November 13, 2019 I find him sitting outside his office at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), a laptop carelessly balanced in his lap. You needed not ask who this light-skinned young man is, if only because his white t-shirt advertises him with the cover of Survivors Café the poetry collection book that landed him a National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) for Outstanding Fiction Book in 2018. As he notices this writer come towards him, he stretches his hand and wryly smiles, simu...

28Apr

By Onai MushavaNo Comments

Music

How Gwenyagitare Got His Groove

How Gwenyagitare Got His Groove And if music is a language unto itself, Monolio's guitar speaks with a Zimbabwean accent throughout his work, from the great Tuku albums, the Chamhembe renaissance and the Afrika Revenge-Pax Afro years to the Zimdancehall turn and guns of the new decade like Mbeu and Tocky Vibes. Not yet 50, Mono has played more than 1000 albums, sungura, chimurenga, reggae, rhumba, even holding his own as the go-to guitarist for the Pentecostal community. By Mukoma Onai | April 20, 2017 Once upon a time in Zimbabwe, a hacker was someone who bent over mbira keys, thumbed his way into your soul and messed around till time meant nothing to you. Since then, generations of lead guitarists from Stanley Manatsa to Trust Samende have made their case as the new keep...