It’s almost 36 years since John Lennon died from an assassin’s bullet outside his home, The Dakota, in Manhattan, New York. Yet they still flock to mourn the Beatles guitarist, from Liverpool, at his memorial site in Central Park.
John Lennon, Bullet, Manhattan, New York, Memorial, Mark David Chapman, July 2016
It’s chilling to think how killer, Mark David Chapman, posed for a photo with Lennon, hours before he pulled the trigger. Chapman, who was a Lennon fan, was imprisoned for life and denied parole many times.
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Across the road from where Lennon was gunned down, his widow Yoko Ono built a 2.5-acre teardrop-shaped living memorial in Central Park. Their Dakota apartment overlooked the park where the couple often walked.
On Lennon’s birthday, October 9, 1985, Ono and thousands fans unveiled the memorial site and renamed it Strawberry Fields; the name of a song he wrote for the Beatles.
As a Lennon fan from Africa, I vowed to set my foot there before returning to the motherland in September. In my second month in New York, weekends passed without visiting the park. I had been promised tours of the Big Apple since I arrived but I stay on the other side of the Hudson River in Jersey City. All my colleagues are on other side in New York City and Manhattan.
At 6PM on a Saturday in May, I was caught up in the moment of despair as it seemed another weekend was going to waste, a text message beeped. It was Karsten Strauss, a colleague.
“Hi Thobile, (do you) still have time to hang out tomorrow? But first a question: are you a fan of John Lennon?”
“Yeah man, I am John Lennon groupie,” I replied.
Apparently Manhattan knows not Sunday rest and never sleeps. I took a train to Manhattan and followed instructions sent to my phone. Strauss was there waiting for me. We walked down a few miles and passed two guards in navy suits and matching marine caps at the gate of the Dakota apartment.
“Where did it happen, officer?” Strauss queried as we passed.
One guard, leaning on a sign that read ‘Authorized Persons Only Beyond This Point’, lowered his head and hit the ground with shiny black shoes. “Right here,” he replied.
As we entered the memorial, the walkway led to a small crowd taking photographs around the black and white mosaic circle with one word on it:  “Imagine”. The mosaic was a gift from the city of Naples, Italy.
Nearby, a busker strummed his guitar, very hard, playing a song I didn’t recognize; opposite him a grey-haired man in a stall sold souvenirs bearing Lennon quotes.
The excitement was overwhelming; I stepped to the mosaic and smiled to the camera with my African swagger. Unbeknown to me I had jumped the queue, I was embarrassed but I offered my sincere apology for the mishap. That’s not how I was raised. In the spirit of Lennon, peace was made.
Something about this memorial stirred thoughts of Africa. In 2007, South Africa mourned the death of a musician cut off in his prime. Reggae musician Lucky Dube was shot dead in front of his children as he dropped them off at a relative’s house in Rosettenville, Johannesburg. The man of sober habits – a non-smoker – died at the hands of carjackers.
Dube, born on a farm in Ermelo, Mpumalanga, was drawn to music after stumbling on instruments in a school cupboard. He released his first album in 1982; two years after Lennon died. He died 27 years after Lennon, and not much older, aged 43, with 21 albums and a record deal with Motown. Like Lennon, Dube carried a torch for peace.
The legacy of Lennon will be celebrated for many more decades in his adopted land. Dube, the man who stuck by his people and preached peace to the end, died with his good name and little else to remember him by other than his songs. There is no park, nor memorial, nor studio, to commemorate a man who meant as much to many Africans as Lennon ever did. Imagine.

Imagine?

I don’t think [Morgan] Tsvangirai is the number one enemy of the state, I think I am because I sing against the government,” says Thomas Tafirenyika Mapfumo, a rebel musician and African to the tip of his dreadlocks as we sit for a tête-à-tête in Newtown, Johannesburg, on one of his rare visits to the continent of his birth.
Famed author, musicologist and journalist, Banning Eyre, in his book Lion Songs, describes Mapfumo as the Lion of Zimbabwe who stands beside Fela Kuti, Youssou N’Dour and Franco as one of Africa’s greatest musicians.
“He is on par with some of the greatest musicians to come out Africa and what makes his music even more important is that it helped liberate Southern Rhodesia from [Ian] Smith’s racist rule. His music galvanized liberation forces. His interest has never been commercial but to raise consciousness, that is why he got into trouble when he sang Corruption, attacking Mugabe’s rule,” says African music expert, Richard Nwamba.
Mapfumo is as much a sharp social commentator as a musician. It is this dissent that forced one of Zimbabwe’s finest musicians to seek refuge in the United States (US) in 2005. He has even sung a song praising his hosts: We love America, everyone wants to be there. The feeling is mutual. In the US he received an honorary doctorate degree from Ohio University.
At the age of 70, Mapfumo looks frail but he hasn’t dropped the habits of his wild youth: smoking, cracking jokes and making condescending remarks about other musicians.
It’s been a full life for Mapfumo, who grew up with his grandparents in Marondera, Mashonaland East, about 72 kilometers east of Harare and a million miles from the rest of the world.
Mapfumo’s grandfather played the mbira, a metal keyed instrument, and hosho, a percussion instrument. The two instruments provide the beat to Mapfumo’s music.
“I was herding cattle at the age of seven while my parents stayed in the city. I joined them in the early sixties to attend school in Salisbury’s (now Harare) township of Mabvuku,” he recollects on a meandering walk through his music career.
“In the city I started listening to radio as we didn’t have that luxury in the countryside. I used to listen to Kwela Kwela, Jazz 9, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, Franco, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra,” he says.
“I think I was born a musician, it was within me.”
At the age of 16, Mapfumo joined a band called Zutu Brothers, who wanted him to sing rock and roll, like Otis Redding and Elvis Presley.
“I was a very good rock and roller, I used to rock,” he chuckles.
This clashed with his parents’ beliefs.
“My parents were church people, my father was a choir leader and my mother played a leading role in the women’s league.”
There was no stopping Mapfumo.
“From Mabvuku we moved to Mbare where I joined a music group called Cosmic Four Dots and I was still singing rock and roll music. However our music genre was not consistent as we changed with the times, partly due to the influence of the Beatles and John Lennon.”
Mapfumo says it was during this time he sang his first song in his mother tongue, called Shungu Dzinondibaya (Passion Kills Me). It was recorded in a house in Mbare by a passing producer who worked for the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation.
“While visiting a grocery shop I heard the song being played on the radio. I never got a cent out of that song,” Mapfumo laughs.
“I then started asking myself questions… I realized that my identity was in singing the music of the people I grew up with. A lot of people thought I was losing my mind when I started mbira music with the band Acid.”
The band was named Acid because of its corrosive social commentary.
One of the songs was Pamuromo Chete (It’s Just Talk). Mapfumo says the song was an instant hit because its lyrics reflected dissent against Smith’s white minority rule in the then Rhodesia.
“We were responding to his utterances that Zimbabwe will never have a black government in his lifetime or in a thousand years.”
Mapfumo decided to form a group called Blackman Unlimited that transformed to the present day line-up called Blacks Unlimited. He started the group with his uncle and the musicians; Marshall Munhumumwe, Leonard Chiyangwa and Jonah Sithole.
By then, Mapfumo had moved from Salisbury to Mutare, then called Umtali, a small town of the eastern border with Mozambique. On Fridays, they would play at bus stops.
“We used to play music for people getting off the buses from the city. I was the highest paid person in the band earning eight pounds per week. In Mutare we worked for a businessman called Murapa but the group later disintegrated over payment issues,” he says.
The crunch came when Mapfumo asked Murapa for the band’s money.
“‘You haven’t yet played’, said Murapa when I asked for money after working for two weeks. The band members were disappointed and left for Harare.”
As his career progressed, Mapfumo realized he needed to sing in the language of his people.
In the 1970s, he met a musician who would become a big name in Africa. His name was Oliver Mtukudzi
“Oliver had his song called Red For Stop And Green For Go. I asked him, ‘why don’t you sing in Shona and do your lyrics in Shona?’” chuckles Mapfumo. Remember what we said about condescending?
As the liberation war came to a close, Smith accused Mapfumo of promoting insurgency with his music.
“In 1979, I was arrested by the Smith government and I was put into detention at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison for three months. I was released on condition that I went to sing at Muzorewa’s rally, this was during the internal settlement,” says Mapfumo.
The internal settlement, an agreement to end the civil war, was signed on March 3, 1978 by Smith and moderate nationalist leaders Abel Muzorewa; Ndabaningi Sithole and Jeremiah Chirau.
Mapfumo was opposed to it but was forced to compromise. As a bargain for his release he had to sing at Muzorewa’s rally. Muzorewa, a Methodist priest, was seen as a sell-out by liberation forces.
“Our weapon is our music, let’s go and sing what we have been singing all along,” he told his band. It was not that simple.
Mapfumo says the state-owned Herald newspaper pictured him next to Muzorewa and soon liberation fighters saw him as a sell-out too. Despite this, Mapfumo was asked to play at the birth of Zimbabwe on April 18, 1980 on the same bill as Bob Marley.
“On celebration day we were treated like enemies, we were made to perform last when all the dignitaries had gone. We played for the real people who fought the war.”
Mapfumo thought things would change when Robert Mugabe took over. He was wrong.
He sang against Mugabe’s administration in the late 1980s as corruption took root. He also sang in praise of Mozambique’s president, Samora Machel, for fighting apartheid. He sang against the then president of South Africa, P.W. Botha, a classic called Tongosienda. The apartheid era leader would have needed an interpreter as Mapfumo sang in Shona. Mapfumo became a persona non grata in South Africa.
“Back home I started singing against corruption, economic malaise and people getting land without knowledge of farming,” he says.
He sang that land reform was a flop in a hit called Maiti Kurima Hakunetsi (you thought farming was easy).
Thirty five years on from the birth of Zimbabwe, Mapfumo is adamant, despite threats from the Mugabe administration, he is not going to stop singing about social issues.
His music is banned on state radio stations back home and promoters fight shy of bringing him to perform for his people. He now keeps up the spirits of his fellow countrymen who left Zimbabwe for the same reasons as him by performing shows around the world.
“We haven’t looked back, we have been with the people and we will always be with them.”
After our hour-long interview, with endless insistence by his manager Austin Sibanda that I should wrap up to allow the old man to take a smoke before he talks to his relatives who have traveled from Zimbabwe, I asked when he is going to perform back home.
“I am ready to perform in Zimbabwe but there are no promoters prepared to be associated with me, I also have to be careful with the situation.”
Mapfumo fears for his life. He says intelligence operatives who are fans of his music keep him informed.
While frozen out at home, Mapfumo is taking his music to Africa. In October, he performed at the Defense and Security Forces celebrations of Mozambique in Chimoio, Beira and Tete. Clearly, he hasn’t yet upset the government of Mozambique.
Those gigs followed the two he played in Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa, where it’s believed more than a million Zimbabweans live. The Johannesburg gig was packed with Zimbabweans, both black and white, shoulder to shoulder with a few South Africans.
Throughout the show, most sang along, chanting ‘Mukanya’, the totem of Mapfumo. There were many familiar faces in the crowd. Dewa Mavhinga, a human rights lawyer and activist, looked as happy as a lawyer can be.
“The old man is still good, hey,” says Mavhinga as Mapfumo sang his last song of the night.
It’s unlikely to be the last for the 70-year-old Mapfumo, who has straddled Africa and the vast gap between Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley. Clearly the rebel with a cause is just getting started.

Is this  Zimbabwe’s Public Enemy Number One?

David Gresham was the X-ray mechanic who interviewed John Lennon. He loved music and wrote songs but no one wanted to sing them.
One night, Gresham sat down in a tiny hall in Sandton, in Johannesburg, and found the solution to his problems singing Gaelic folk in front of 400 people. The singer was Sean Rennie, also a professional footballer and triple black belt karate fighter.
Months later, the struggling Gresham persuaded Rennie to record the song I’ll Walk With You. The song went on to reach the top 10 chart in South Africa. That success meant Gresham’s fledgling record company is still running 43 years later. In return, Rennie earned a little spot in South African history.
In September, Gresham honored the man who took a chance with his song.
“You know, that was the first time I was in a studio. I was so intimidated,” says Rennie.
“Really? But you recorded so well. I didn’t notice at all,” says Gresham.
According to Gresham, I’ll Walk With You was recorded in one of the cheapest and dingiest studios in Johannesburg. It cost the duo $1.50 per hour. In 1970, this money was half of Gresham’s monthly mortgage.
Gresham was a radio DJ and a composer. He desperately wanted to be an entrepreneur in music.
“I was always listening to music. When I was supposed to be learning how to fix medical machines, my desk was full of radios I had built instead. People kept shouting at me to turn it off. I couldn’t,” says Gresham.
Gresham got his foot in the door by landing a job as a sound editor. When he was 26, he chanced upon the editors of LM Radio, the famous pop station in Mozambique, at a jazz concert in Swaziland. In his young days he interviewed the likes of Ringo Starr, Tom Jones, Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Kenny Rogers, Engelbert Humperdinck and The Bee Gees.
In 1969, Gresham went to London to hunt down John Lennon. Lennon had been banned from South African radio after he was quoted saying that ‘the Beatles were bigger than Jesus’. Gresham tracked Lennon down at Apple Studios in London.
“Let me tell all Springbok Radio listeners, I am a follower of Christ and that’s it. And I would like to apologize to anybody who was offended,” said Lennon.
Springbok Radio refused to play their songs.
In 1964, Rennie, who was born in Dublin, came to South Africa from Belfast’s Crusaders Football Club to play professional football for Johannesburg’s Southern Suburbs. At the dawn of television in South Africa, Rennie hosted a folk song show. The 72 year old cringes at the memory of being on TV.  While living in South Africa for over 30 years, Rennie sang part-time, became a general manager in the motor industry, and gave up football to compete in dojos.
“In the off-season I joined a karate dojo, and I’m now a level three black belt… I thought to myself ‘I would rather participate on a karate floor’. Been in three tournaments, been disqualified twice,” he says.
Rennie is unwilling to give the reason for being disqualified but he does admit to running on the wrong side of the law as a teenager in Ireland.
“Every now and again you had to run away from the cops with their dogs. I remember playing with a band, The Cyclones, in Belfast. The lead singer, Jim Armstrong, ended up being voted the best guitarist in the American West Coast. We were walking home and it started to snow. We were suddenly confronted with two policemen and their dogs. It was a stand-up [fight]. It wasn’t easy to live under those conditions. But it prepares you heavily,” says Rennie.
Unlike many musicians who get tired of singing their hits, Rennie and Gresham still relish the sounds of I’ll Walk With You.
Rennie quips that the last time he sang the song was two weeks ago while alone in his house, in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, followed by a few of his other hits. He’s not shy to belt out the vocals either; he says he has no problem pulling out his guitar to satisfy a spontaneous request, be it in a bar, the changeroom or a party.
As entrepreneurs who have been in the business for more than 45 years, it’s unusual for them to be so cheerful, especially after they took a chance in the often messy world of music. It’s even more unusual that they are still friends after all these years.   FL

Tag: John Lennon

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Imagine?

Is this Zimbabwe’s Public Enemy Number One?

You Sing It, I’ll Sell It. we hope!