Thursday, January 24, 2019

Music: "Farewell, 'Tuku'; Zimbabwean icon Oliver Mtukudzi, dies, at 66

One of Zimbabwe and Africa’s most iconic musicians, Oliver Mtukudzi, died
on Wednesday at age 66 after decades of rollicking, captivating performances won him devoted fans worldwide.
“It is difficult to accept, I have no words,” said musician and poet Albert Nyathi, who joined several other mourners at the hospital in the capital, Harare, where the star passed away. “What is left is to celebrate his life.”
Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald newspaper reported that Mtukudzi had “succumbed to a long battle with diabetes.”
With his distinctive husky voice, Mtukudzi had a career that stretched from white minority-ruled Rhodesia to majority-ruled Zimbabwe, producing a string of hits that spread his fame across Africa and eventually to an international audience.
Tuku, as he was widely known, avoided political controversy. The closest he came was with his 2001 song “Bvuma,” which in the Shona language means “accept that you are old” and was taken as a message to longtime leader Robert Mugabe to retire.
Paul Mangwana, a senior official with Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party, praised Mtukudzi for remaining “apolitical,” saying he supported calls for the singer to be buried at the national heroes’ acre, a shrine that is a preserve of ruling party elites.
“He was a nation-builder. Where it was necessary to criticize he would, and where it was necessary to praise he would,” Mangwana said at the hospital.
In a country where political tensions are high and party loyalties matter, Mtukudzi cut across the divide, singing at ruling party events but also performing at late opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s wedding and funeral.

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