Oliver Mtukudzi as a cultural activist: exploring Africanity in Tuku Music
This chapter critically engages Oliver Mtukudzi’s lyrical compositions, Tsika Dzedu (Our cultural traditions) and Mwana Wamambo (The Prince/Princess). While utilizing these selected renditions among the musician’s musical corpus, the chapter notes that Mtukudzi’s music is both functional and valid a...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Book chapter |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80728-3_8 http://hdl.handle.net/11408/4827 |
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| Summary: | This chapter critically engages Oliver Mtukudzi’s lyrical compositions, Tsika Dzedu (Our cultural traditions) and Mwana Wamambo (The Prince/Princess). While utilizing these selected renditions among the musician’s musical corpus, the chapter notes that Mtukudzi’s music is both functional and valid art for it advances Africanity in a multicultural context. It further argues that such cultural activism and reconstructive agenda permeating the selected lyrical renditions demonstrate that Tuku is a musician par-excellence since he is an embodiment of Shona and/or African culture. This, in turn, makes Tuku more of a cultural hero; the chapter argues that Mtukudzi’s art is art-for-life’s sake. The appreciation of these selected songs is hinged on analytic Afrocentricity as defined by Asante (An Afrocentric Manifesto: Toward an African Renaissance. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007: 41) who posits that; “when Afrocentricity is employed in analysis or criticism, it opens the way for examination of all issues related to the African world.” |
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