Urban Grooves PDF
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Urban Grooves: The Performance of Politics in Zimbabwe’s Hip Hop Music by Wonderful G Bere A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Performance Studies New York University May 2008 __________________________________ Barbara Browning 3320761 Copyright 2008 by Bere, Wonderful G. All rights reserved 3320761 2008 © Wonderful G. Bere All Rights Reserved, 2008 iv DEDICATION To the future: Nyaradzo and Tivakudze. Also to the mourning people of Zimbabwe; our time shall come. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without a framework of support that surrounded and sustained me throughout the process. I thank Musikavanhu, the Creator of people, and my ancestors for providing me with persons with tremendous gifts and blessings, who were essential in the completion of this project. I would like to thank Barbara Browning for being such a great advisor through this process. Thanks to members of my committee Jose Munoz and Tavia Nyong’o, whose classes also stimulated and shaped my perspective on race issues and performance, and Jason King and Jason Stanyek. At NYU many members of the Performance Studies department were instrumental in shaping ideas and concerns about this project even before I knew this is what I wanted to do, especially Ngugi wa Thiong’o who mentored me in those first two years. I remember him lowering his head and confidingly asking me; do you have a Shona name I could use to call you? Fred Moten has always been a brother from day one; him too I remember asking me: Does Mugabe allow hip hop in Zimbabwe? Thanks to Andre Lepecki whose Dissertation Proposal class helped me figure out what to let go in a way that made this project to begin and to end. Thanks also to Barbara Kishenblatt-Gimblett and Diana Taylor whose classes helped me find my feet in performance studies. Thanks to all of my professors in the Department of Performance Studies. vi I have received a lot of professional and social support from the Tisch Special Programs office, especially Vice Dean Pari Shirazi, Craig Germaine Foisy and the entire 12th Floor staff. You guys always made me feel there was somewhere to go to and find smiling faces. Craig, I still feel the vibes, man! I have also received wonderful support from my colleagues. Praise Zenenga, anything I can say about your support will be an understatement. As our people say, to say it in words is to diminish its impact. The People of Color Collective was a great inspiration, especially Bantu, Fatou, Crystal, Kim, Tracie, Shani and Janice. I have also received great musical support from my crew in Zimbabwe, especially BZA, Scaredem, 40B, and Jah. I am indebted to the urban groovers, rappers, dreadmen, whatever they prefer to call themselves, who agreed to be interviewed and who provided invaluable information and insight and opened my ideas to new and great ways of thinking about the urban music scene in Zimbabwe. To my parents and siblings in Zimbabwe, you have always been a source of inspiration to my life. The tears I have shade when I think of what you go through in Zimbabwe have spurred me to reach dizzy hearts “where only wind-swept lichens grow,” as a poem I once read in primary school claims. Even as I salute you at this very moment, I am vii struggling to hold tears back. I, however, get comfort in the belief that nothing lasts forever; “Zvichapera chete” (It shall come to pass) and our time shall come. Paul, you are family, keep the fire burning. To my lovely children, Unity Nyaradzo and Tavakudze Muvandiri, dare I say more? You are the future; the names you carry are heavy and they are a manifestation of the holy trinity of the Living, the Dead and the Unborn. To my wife Edith, I love you. Most importantly, to the afflicted people of Zimbabwe; your struggles are my struggles. Our Ancestors are closely watching the pain we feel even in our dreams. The scorpions which bite the heart will soon be gone and at that time we will play our drums loud and clear and, hopefully, declare a new motto and say: NEVER AGAIN. viii ABSTRACT Urban Grooves is a genre which has been deliberately controlled by the state, and yet artists still manage to subvert the form and perform protest through strategies of lyrical ambiguity. It is the youth music in Zimbabwe which fuses local sounds with American hip hop and r&b, and Jamaican dancehall. The music received full recognition in 2002 following the national introduction of a 75 percent local content quota on music broadcasts. Various interests mobilize music as a tool in aid of political agendas; the state directly sponsors artists to sing propaganda songs and censors songs advancing a counter- narrative. The state's strategies shape urban grooves as artists seek to either conform to state requirements or subvert them. Faced with an economic and political crisis, the state blamed the West and viewed its criticism on issues of democracy and human rights as part of a regime change agenda. This resulted in the state directly politicizing urban grooves as it feared the West’s influence on the Zimbabwean population as an ideological contaminating pathogen to be controlled through the banning of music from outside Zimbabwe on broadcast media. However, as much as urban grooves became a tool in the hands of the state, it also became a tool of subversion of the state. ix The study of urban grooves allows the theorization of the embodiment of artistic practice as a political force. I am particularly interested in performance’s oppositional potential. While hip hop is considered a universal liberatory movement, in Zimbabwe the music lands itself to use by power on the side of oppression. Questions which arise from the subversion of the state’s control of the music include the following: have urban groovers seen through the veil of the state’s deception of artists by fronting support for the industry yet breeding a brigade of praise singers to drum up support for its political agenda? Are the artists deceiving the state by accepting state sponsorship while at the same time subverting the state narrative?
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