Interview with Emmanuel "Jagari" Chanda from THE WITCH

Originally published @ psychedelicbaby

By the mid 1970s, the Southern African nation known as the Republic of Zambia had fallen on hard times. The new Federation found itself under party rule. Zambia’s then-president engaged what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in a political fencing match that damaged his country’s ability to trade with its main partner. The Portuguese colonies of Angola to the West and Mozambique to the East were fighting their own battles for independence; conflict loomed on all sides of this landlocked nation.

This is the environment in which the catchy – if misleadingly – titled “Zam Rock” scene that flourished in 1970s Zambian cities such as Lusaka and Chingola emerged. Though full of beacons of hope for its numerous musical hopeful it was a tumultuous time and it’s no wonder that the Zambian musicians taken by European and English influences gravitated to the hard, dark side of the rock and funk spectrum. From the little of the Zambian 70s rock and funk music that has been spread via small blogs and bootlegs – the likes of Chrissy Zebby, Paul Ngozi and the Ngozi Family, and the devastating Peace – we learn that fuzz guitars were commonplace, driving rhythms as influenced by James Brown’s funk as Jimi Hendrix’s rock predominated, and the bands largely sang in the country’s national language, English.

It's a truly great pleasure to talk with you Emmanuel "Jagari" Chanda. I'd mostly like to talk about two things. Firstly about scene itself and then about your band in particular. Let's start at the beginning. What do you think was the moment when you began listening to rock music. It was hard and almost impossible for you to buy records, so the only way was probably via radio stations?

I started listening to pop music first on the radio in the early ‘60s as a young boy-it was the DJ’s choice-e.g. "Top Of The Pops", "Beat In Germany" and Mozambiques forerunner to "Maputo Lorenzo Marica Hits Parade". My late elder brother George, who brought me up, had a radio and a record player, but his taste was Jim Reeves’ type of music, mine was more of Cliff Richard, Beatles, Hollies, Monkeys, Manfred Mann, Troggs, Rolling Stones, Dave Clark Five, Elvis Presley, and the like. The rock influence came slightly later, after I listened to Deep Purple, Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Free, Alice Cooper, Santana, Black Sabbath, etc. This time I had access to records through friends and schoolmates as Teal Records Company and Zambia Music Parlor came into the scene.

'WITCH' was the first band that released an LP. But were artists such as Paul Ngozi or Rikki Ililonga, already established as musicians? They didn't record yet anything at the time, right?

Paul Ngozi, whose real name is Paul Nyirongo, was first in 'The Scorpions' and 'The 3 Years Before', before he formed the 'Ngozi Family'. He changed his name to Paul Ngozi when he went solo. The same is true for Rikki Ililonga who had been in many bands, including 'Mosi-o-Tunya' before he went solo. Both were established/experienced musicians playing live gigs in various clubs and places. Rikki and Paul settled in Lusaka while the 'WITCH' were in Kitwe (about 340 kilometers apart). But recordings by various bands and solo artists only came after 'WITCH', and when Teal Records and Zambia Music Parlor started signing on musicians from the mid-1970s onward.

What did the very early beginnings of the scene look like? I'm thinking prior to 'WITCH'. Was there actually anything connected with rock music? Anything not recorded at the time but played in concerts?

Yes, there were unrecorded bands, both along the Copperbelt (copper mining towns near one another, about 40-50 kilometers apart) and Lusaka (the capital city of Zambia). From the Copperbelt we had at least a band or two in each town. Kitwe had 'The Black Souls', 'Red Balloons', 'The Boy Friends' (later 'The Peace'), 'Peanuts', 'Fire Balls' etc. Ndola had 'The Yatagana', 'Armanaz', 'Black Foot', '5 Revolutions', 'Upshoots', etc. In Luanshya there were 'The Twikels' and 'Black Jesus', while in Mufulira there was 'The Gas Company' (later On Paper). 'The Oscillations' were in Bancroft (later to become 'Chililabombwe'). I cannot remember any bands in Chingola, another of the Copperbelt towns. There were also many bands in Lusaka, such as 'Rev 5', 'Salty Dog', 'MIGS', 'Lusaka Beatles' (later 'The Earth Quakes'), 'Mkusi', 'Cross Town Traffic', 'Born Free' (later 'Cross Bones'), 'He/She Mambo', 'Explosives', etc.

What year did 'WITCH' form? How did you meet the guys and what were their names? I know you'd begun being musicians at early ages in school, where you were all classmates. Those bands never recorded anything, but I would like you to tell us the musicians names and how you came to form 'The WITCH'.

'The WITCH' was formed in 1971-1972. It was first called 'The Kingstone Market' but after some members left the band Chris Mbewe, Wingo, and George Kunda (known as Groovy Joe) and I remained in Kitwe to become 'The WITCH'. I was recruited by Groovy Joe after he saw me jam with 'The Red Balloons', 'The Boy Friends' and at some school performances (I was at Chaboli Secondary/High School). I was in the same class as two members of The Black Souls (Jeff Mushinge and Leonard "Lee" Bwalya. Later on Groovy Joe and Wingo left 'The WITCH'. They were replaced by Boyd Sinkala ('Black Souls'), John "Music" Muwia and Gideon Mwamulenga ('Boy Friends'). So the new lineup was: Chris Mbewe (lead guitar), John Muma (and guitar and vocals), Gideon Mwamulenga (bass), Boyd Sinkala (drums) and myself (vocals and percussion). This is the lineup that recorded the album "Introduction". We later added Paul "Jones" Mumba on organ.

'WITCH' is an acronym for "We Intend to Cause Havoc". How did you come up with such a name?

'The WITCH' was coined by the late 'Wingo'. It was picked from a sound effect (wah wah) "footswitch". He removed "foot" and suggested "Switch". Then we removed the "S" leaving 'WITCH', like a witch on a broom stick, but later a graphic artist (our friend in Kitwe) coined the acronym "We Intend To Cause Havoc".

You formed in second largest city of Zambia called Kitwe. Was the Zam Rock scene only in this city or was it across the whole country?

The Zamrock scene was a common feature along the whole line of rail in Zambia (the urban towns) from the border town Chiliabombwe (near Congo D.R.C.) through the Copperbelt, from Kabwe and Lusaka to Livingstone (the last town before Zimbabwe). There were similar performances at clubs, festivals, agricultural and commercial shows, trade fairs etc. in these cities, probably because the sources of music and the influences were similar. The rural areas were not so much influenced by Zamrock or pop music and instead played mostly ethnic traditional music on various occasions and ceremonies. Part of this rural music is the Kalindula genre.

In 1972 you released your first LP called "Introduction", which is probably the first Zam Rock LP. Previously there were only 'Musi-O-Tunyas' singles. This album is one of the first indicators of how pure and catchy Zambian garage rock can be. This was private release of 300 copies if I recall correctly and you went to Nairobi to record it. Would you like to share with us some of your memories from recording this LP? I would also like to know what kind of gear you guys used. Also, what can you tell me about the cover artwork?

"Introduction" and "In The Past" were recorded at Malachite Studio in Chingola (Copperbelt); "Lazy Bones” was recorded at DB Studio in Lusaka; but "Lukombo Vibes" and 'WITCH' (including Janet)" were recorded at Sapra Studio in Nairobi, Kenya. The music qualities and studio professionalism graduated to better as we progressed in the recordings. 'Sapra' was the best of all the studios we had used. Mr. Debef, the sound engineer was the most experimental of them all. The local recordings were just like a stage live performance, done in mono, and if one made a mistake we had to start all over again as a band. The common gear was bell bottom trousers; high heeled shoes and afro hair do (Black American/Jimi Hendrix style of those days). The album artwork of "Introduction" depicted a new thing coming down from Heaven. The "Lukombo Vibes" artwork was my concept. Lukombo is a drinking cup/gourd in my language. For the back cover I was thinking of a lonely banished/outcast traditional composer (not in the picture) as he saw his dwelling place deserted. "Lazy Bones" was for the ladies and girls who believe men should fend for them all the way, waiting for spoon feeding.

Chris Ideally preferred Fender, but we had only a few choices depending on what "Piano House" stocked at the time. Trick of the Trade:

When we started managing our selves/own affairs (apart from contractual recording obligation).

- We devised a work schedule for rehearsal; from 09:00hrs to 13:00hrs (Monday to Thursday) – own compositions: 14:00hrs to 17:00hrs copyrights (usually western pop/rock music).

- No girlfriends were allowed in the rehearsal room (so that everyone was free to agree or disagree with bands' direction of rehearsal).

- We kept some money in the band, and only got $200 out of pocket allowances each per week (reason being: all royalties went to redeem the musical equipment on live shows in come).

- Later on, we rotated band leadership every six months in order to share responsibilities and develop the scene of ownership and belonging (even though in the practical sense the rotation was only amongs, Gideon, Chris and myself).

- Driving of our van to transport the equipment was restricted to Chris, because he was the most sober of the lot. Boyd drove too, only when Chris either unwell or too tired.

The LP was selling at shows. How did people react when they heard a local band on vinyl?

People were quite excited and we would have sold a lot more if it had not been that one member (usually myself) had to go and have master stamps and records done in Kenya for limited copies before Teal Record Company came on the scene to start printing records.

Two years later you released another LP called "In the Past" which was again privately released but was reissued the same year by the legendary label, 'ZMP' (Zambia Music Parlour LTD). It was founded by Edward Khuzwayo and was located in Ndola. How did he get in contact with you? In fact would you tell us what you know about the beginning of this label, which released most of the Zam Rock stuff. Who was Edward?

Zambia Music Parlour, owned by Edward Khzwayo started as one of the first distributors of records which were printed/pressed by Teal Records, also in Nidola. In addition to that he managed 3 bands: 'The Twinkies', '5 Revolutions' and 'Black Foot'. He lived in the neighboring town of Luanshya but operated most of his businesses in Ndola. I am told that he had worked for Zambia Railways before he left to set up his own company. He was originally from either Bulawayo or Prum Tree in Zimbabwe. His right hand man, David Billy Nyat, help him run the bands, including supervising their recordings. Sometimes he also sang with 'Black Foot'. When 'WITCH' parted company with their manager, Mr. Phillip Musonda, due to some contractual differences, I approached both Teal Records and Zambia Music Parlour for possible management of the band and sale of our master tapes ("Introduction" and "In The Past"). Mr. Musonda took his musical equipment from the band despite the fact that we had contributed to its purchase. So we demanded our master tapes back. He paid for our music being recorded but we composed the music. Finally we resolved to go our separate ways amicably. We sold the master tapes to Mr. Khuzwayo and signed a 4 year recording contract with Teal Records. Mr. Musonda took one third of the proceeds and we called it a day. I personally got along fairly well with Mr. Khuzwayo.

Back in 1972 ZMP released Blackfoot's "Minnie" album, another great example of Zamrock. There is another band you might help me to get more information about. It's called 'The Peace'. I know they were from Andola and they released album called "Black Power", but I don't know when it was released and I don't know anything about them. Can you tell our readers who they were, because the album is a great example of fuzzy psychedelic rock.

'The Peace' was formed after its forerunner, 'Boy Friends', broke up. John Mums and Gideon were part of 'Boy Friends' before they came to join 'WITCH'. The manager/leader was Ted Makombe. His parents came from Zimbabwe. The band was based in Kitwe rather than Ndora. Ted has since passed on, but I am in touch with his brother and sister. His children are still around too. Ted was a personal friend of mine. I cannot remember which year the "Black Power" album was actually released.

Let's move forward through your discography. Probably your most well known LP is called "Lazy Bones!!" It was released in 1975 on Teal Records from Bulawayo, Matabeleland, North Zimbabwe. Before the LP came out you also released a couple of singles and one of them sold out around 7000 copies, which is absolutely amazing. How many copies do you think the LP sold? Where did you record it and what are some of your strongest memories from producing and recording this amazing LP?

Teal Records Company came from South Africa, not Zimbabwe. I believe its sister company is Gallo Records. The "Lazy Bones" LP actually sold over 7,000 copies. I am not sure of the singles sales. "Lazy Bones" was The WITCH’s first album under the Teal Records contract and the first taste of a more serious studio. Ms. Niki and Mrs. Skinner managed the studio and Peter Musungilo was their sound engineer.

You released two more albums, can you tell me their names? The production and songwriting improved with each album. I know there was a moment when you could afford to buy a new gear. What did you buy?

"Lukomo Vibes" and "WITCH (Including Hit Single Janet)" were our 4th and 5th albums. Yes, indeed the music, arrangements and lyrics were progressive. Another guy, Shadreck Bwalya joined hands with me (we both finished our high school while the rest of the band members did not) so it was easier for the two of us to write English lyrics. He got paid for songwriting, but not as a full band member. We got a 15,000 kwacha (Zambian currency) loan from Teal Records Company to buy our own set of musical instruments so all the royalties from the records under contract went to offset the loan and the band lived on the income from live shows/performances. We had put ourselves on monthly wages and that’s where we got our up keep money and gear (uniforms and personal tastes). We had velvet (black and maroon) uniforms for special shows like weddings. There was no formality in terms of gear, anything would do.

Music composition and arrangement: Anyone would bring ideas – tune/lyrics but usually the band agreed on the arrangement. On "INTRODUCTION" and "IN THE PAST", the music was done and recorded almost at random and in haste – not much work was put in because we were anxious to put our works on wax/vinyl. However, later on we were more serious, sensitive to critists and we had an extra head in Shadiki Bwalya – together we pooled ideas. There were also some rare cases of one person putting the whole piece of music/song together while the rest of the band just added a little touch or flavour to the piece ("The way I feel" by Boyd Sakala; "The only way" - my self; "Nazungwa", Chris Mbewe) etc.

You once mentioned that concerts were very long and not properly organized. You just started playing and then people came. Would you like to share a little about that?

Sometimes we were hired to perform at social functions, promotions of goods and services, weddings, etc. At other times we booked venues ourselves, put up posters and played there while someone else sold beverages and food. The shows varied between 2 to 6 hours with 30 minute breaks every 1 ½ to 2 hours.

The largest concerts were at music festivals, Agricultural and commercial shows and trade fair stinst - The arenas were big and people only paid at the gate to see many different exhibitions (including musical bonds who were hired by show organizers/companies exhibiting at the show) other wise its not easy to pinpoint one of the biggest show in nine years I was with the band.

The most prestigious concert was in Lilongwe, Malawi in 1974/5. The band had police escort on the way from Blantyre to Lilongwe and we had diplomats in the audience. Curtains raising for 'Osibisa' was also remarkable.

Payments for band performances varied with the type of shows e.g. for a wedding up to $400 plus transport (plus drinks and food); teen – time (after noon) shows 14:00hrs to 19:00hrs realized between $200 and $300. Night clubs or sessions where $1500 plus transport per show (from 19:00 hrs to 02:00hrs) or up $2000 sometimes when the band hired venues and collected gate takings or shared gate takings with venue owners 50/50 or 60/40 while someone else sold beverages at shows if it was not a night club. Gate charges were $2 per person – usually at night – 50C per person for teen – time (this included school going audiences).

Let's get back to the beginning of the scene. One of the major influences or breakthroughs if you prefer was 'Osibisa'. Did they tour your country or how did you were you so influenced by them?

We once opened for 'Osibisa' when they toured Zambia and played in Kitwe at Nkana Stadium. We had the privilege of mingling with the band members and asked them questions and observed their organization. They were musical, happy going, quite sure of themselves, very creative and energetic; they were marvelous to watch and listen to. They definitely influenced my approach to fusing an African touch to my rock compositions, as could be seen on the "Lukombo Vibes" album which my band recorded after our experiences with 'Osibisa'. Personally, Ted Osei (their band leader) inspired and encouraged me to go to the school of music, which I did in 1977.

In an interview you did with Egon you mention bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Grand Funk Railroad, Deep Purple and Jimi Hendrix as influences. Were there any other artists you liked at the time?

Apart from those groups I also listened to a lot of other Western music, such as Albert Hammond, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Bread, The Doors, etc.

Let's get back to some of the releases. Paul Ngozy is one of the better known names. What do you know about him. Were you friends? He released some really amazing albums first in english and then deciding to use one of your language on late 70's albums.

Yes Paul Ngozi was a personal friend. I was one of the pall bearers at his funeral. He was friendly and a tribal cousin (in Zambian people from the Northern and Eastern parts of the country regard one another as cousins after a historical war they fought many centuries ago). I came from the North and he came from the East. He was a rocker with a central theme of social commentary in most of his lyrics. English was not one of his favored languages.

One of the best LP's was "My Ancestors" by 'Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family'. Chrissy was a drummer who later also started a solo career. Who all was in 'the Ngozi Family'?

The other guys I remember in the 'Ngozi Family' were Peter Bwalya (bass) later replaced by Justin Nyirongo, Scare (drums), and Jasper Lungu (2nd guitar/vocals), but I was not in constant check with the changes in the lineup. There were several.

One of the most important groups from the scene was 'Musi-O-Tunya', which featured an amazing guitarist who later released several solo albums. His name was Rikki Ililonga. Another amazing guitarist was Keith Mlevhu. Mlevhu played for 'The Real Five' and who else? I know he recorded some solo albums later with great heavy guitar work on them.

Keith Mlevu (Shem Mulevu was his real name) was one of Zambia’s most accomplished musicians and guitarists. I first saw and heard him play during a music festival at Jubilee Hall in Lusaka, during my school holidays when I visited my grandfather in Lusaka. Keith was impressive with his solos and vocals. His band was called 'The Rev 5'. They mostly mimicked The Rolling Stones while the Lusaka Beatles, later 'Earth Quakes', followed the Beatles style. He later left and played with various groups before he went solo.

Its interesting, that instrumental music was not very popular, with a few exceptions including Rikki's work. The main thing was rhythm. You once mentioned that the rhythms rather than the harmonies are most important in your music.

Yes, in my study of African music. I have discovered that the strength of African music is crisscross rhythmic patterns that provoke reactions from the participants who are tempted to dance along. The vocals are usually call and response with short lines of verses and 2 to 3 harmonic parts which are not notated. The Western music can sometimes be quite complicated in arrangements, melodies and harmonies, e.g. orchestras and choirs.

Do you think that there is a certain reflection of war times in your music? Not just in yours but in Zamrock music in general, which kind of settled down and create an atmosphere we can hear on the records?

Zambia has never experienced any serious war per se, even though we supported a lot of freedom fighters from around us, such as Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique. Maybe what you hear in some Zamrock music has to do with cries and protests by artists so as to be recognized and respected in society by the authorities that be. Usually, musicians were regarded as failures in most parts of our society, such that no one wanted to marry their daughters off to musicians. In my band’s case "Tooth Factory" and "Black Tears" reflect these conflicts. Once we were arrested for "noise making to annoyance". The Home Affairs Minister ordered our arrest during a performance at a nightclub near his home so I wrote "October Nights" while in police custody. It took protests from our fans to secure our release after 2 or 3 nights (the arrest was on Zambia’s Independence Eve).

Circumstances were hard for you guys in Zambia. For instance when the Paul Ngozi got a record deal and released his album, but he still went to Nairobi and printed out bootlegs of his albums.

Maybe I missed that Paul Ngozi turn of events but what I know is that at one point in Zambia we had a censorship board which banned or could disallow certain songs being played on national radio if that’s what you are referring to. Insulting songs or those criticizing government policies were considered to be in bad taste, for instance.

Was the scene influenced by any psychedelic or other sort of drugs or perhaps rituals? I don't mean just your band, but in general?

Marijuana was a common feature in Zambia’s rural set ups, before it became illegal. Some villagers believed it gave them desire and push to go an extra mile while working on their fields to grow more food. Likewise most musicians and artists in general, as well as some athletes used it with a belief that it increased their creativity and zeal. There were no rituals during Zamrock shows, nothing like the "Woodstock" scenario either. Fans smoked privately too, especially those who could not afford beer and hard drinks to help them enjoy the gigs.

There is one band I want to ask you about. They were called Amanaz and they came out of your town and formed around late 1973 and recorded absolutely amazing LP called "Africa" in 1975 on ZMP label? What are perhaps some other bands, that we didn't mention yet?

"Armanz" were based in Ndola. There are still two living members of this group. Keith Kabwe (drums/vocals) is now a Penticostal Pastor in Mbala, a town in the Northern part of Zambia, while Isaac Mpofu (lead guitar/vocals) is now a farmer in Chongwe, a suburb east of Lusaka. Your other info on the band is correct. There were many other Zamrock/Pop groups around that either recorded one LP or never recorded their music for one reason or the other, e.g. Oscilations, Mkushi, Fire Fballs, Sentries, Explosives, Upshoots, Salty Dog, etc. in addition to those I have mentioned previously.

I know 'WITCH' toured some neighboring countries. How did citizens in neighboring countries react to your music? Besides Nigeria you were the only country that had rock music. In fact the only country who invented something musically. Nigeria was in my opinion highly influenced by Ginger Baker experimentations.

We never toured Nigeria, but we recorded in Kenya, performed in Tanzania (Bahai Beach), Malawi (almost the entire country), Zimbabwe (few towns), Swaziland, Botswana (many towns), and almost all the provinces of Zambia. I do not remember experiencing flops in these areas, some of our music was rather new to them so our repertoire was a mix of Western songs and our own compositions. My band was highly talented so it was easy for us to read our audience’s expectations and adapt to the occasion. Generally the band was appreciated and well received. We were quite entertaining and a lovable bunch.

Out of the scene there was another genre born called "Kalindula". The most well known representatives were the "Five Revolutions" I believe. Would you care to share a few words about this genre. It was mainly released on ZMP label, right?

There are 10 provinces, about 72 ethnic groups in Zambia. In each province there are a few common social ceremonies, festivals, lifeline occupational activities, etc. which determine the type of music and musical instruments to employ. In turn, these give guidance to the genre that is relevant. Kalindula is just one of the many there are in Zambia and its common in some parts of Central and most of Luapula provinces in the country. However, Kalindula became more popular after ZMPL signed recording contracts with a few bands and solo artists who had the bias of this genre. These included 'The 5 Revoutions', 'Mulemena Boys', 'Sereje Kalindula Band', 'Lima Jazz Band', 'Spokes Chola', 'P.K. Chishala', 'Shalawambe' and many more.

What occupies your life lately?

There are a few things that have occupied my life lately and presently. I am a mentor, resource person and teacher in many projects and organizations which tap and promote music talents among the youth of Zambia. I am also on the Adjudicator’s Panel that rewards deserving musicians each year through the National Arts Council. I still write songs, mostly Christian, which I intend to record as soon as funds are available for booking a good studio and hire good Christian session musicians to help me record. Another goal is to raise sufficient funds to build a school of music and to accommodate a world standard recording studio for the less privileged in my society. I have gotten into a gemstone mining venture because sponsors are not easy to come by. But I really believe God will make a way one day.

I sincerely thank you for taking your time. Would you like to share anything else? Perhaps a message to It's Psychedelic Baby readers?

Thanks for the wake up call and a nudge for me to start thinking about writing a book on my experiencers in the music industry – a good idea indeed. Thanks also for giving me a starting point. Maybe I should let you edit – what do you think?

Unfortunately, there are no footages of me performing with the 'WITCH BAND'. Even though I have one or two footages of me jamming with other bands the other guys. The guys who kept the footages at our Nationa Broad Caster (ZNBC) passed away many years ago and left no info as to where they kept them (since the footages were personal to holder stuff) – pity eh! No diary either on my part – but I can try to recall many things, events, incidences etc.

Thanks to Egon (Eothen, man you are great, and a God sent pal), Klemen and Kevin and all the readers of It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine. Thanks to all you guys. Please buy the 'WITCH' music and help me realize my wildest dreams, as well as helping the families of my departed band mates through royalties. I really feel resurrected musically and expectant of living my dream as a world renowned musician with a number of hits on various world hits lists, or at least with a song or two for a major film. You guys have rekindled my hopes. I pray that we can meet face to face at some of my promotional tours/performances.

God bless you all meanwhile!

Originally published @ psychedelicbaby

Edward Khuzwayo - Zambia's Towering Music Promoter

IT is now three years and two days since the demise of Zambia’s most accomplished music promoter Edward Khuzwayo whose footmarks will never fade from this country’s entertainment platform.

The Zambian music industry could not have been what it is today without the role played by Khuzwayo.

Almost all Zambian musicians, especially those of the 1970 through to the late 80s, are highly indebted to this visionary promoter.

It was actually Khuzwayo who brought to the fore Zambia’s best music talent in the likes of Rikki Ililonga, Keith Mlevhu, Emmanuel Mulemena, Paul Ngozi and bands such as Five Revolutions, The Great Witch, Tinkles, Blackfoot, The Peace and others too numerous to mention.

He also discovered musicians like Spokes Chola, Laban Kalunga and the Serenje Kalindula band, among others.

Khuzwayo’s love for Zambian music culminated in the establishment of the Zambia music Parlour Empire which had thriving outlets on Lusaka’s Nkwazi Road, Buteko Avenue in Ndola, which was presumably the head office, and Kitwe’s Matuka Avenue.

Billy Nyati, who was his producer and was with Khuzwayo at the time of his death, still believes that the highly gifted promoter was unique and full of new ideas.

“Khuzwayo was one man who had vision and knew what he was doing. He worked closely with all local musicians whom he paid handsomely. He mixed well with everybody and I will personally miss him. There is no one I will ever enjoy working with other than Khuzwayo.” These were Nyati’s words shortly after Khuzwayo’s demise.

Veteran musician, Rikki Ililonga who visited him during his illness said Khuzwayos’ death was really a great loss to the local music industry.

“It is a great loss to the music fraternity. The man was a great producer the Zambian music industry has ever had, it is terrible to lose him at this time of need,” he moaned.

Former Great Witch front man Jaggari Chanda said: “This man helped us (Witch) to set up base at the time we had no manager after we parted company with our former manager Philip Musonda. He was a great man who helped to shape the Zambian music industry.”

Teal Record Company former general manager Faisal Nanavat said he was at a loss because there woul never be another man who would do what Khuzwayo had done for the local music industry during his life.

“The Zambian music industry cannot be the same without the mention of Khuzwayo. It is sad to lose him because he helped to develop the Zambian music industry,” Nanavat said.

All these words which were spoken by prominent musicians and the general populace at the time of his death, reveals how much Khuzwayo would be deeply missed.

At the time of his demise in 2009 at the age of 73, there was still no local promoter who had filled the void he left and there will still be no one now or in the near future who will match Khuzwayo’s music promotion prowess.

Born Edward Godfrey Khuzwayo on March 3, 1936 in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, he attended his early education at St. Peter’s before he went to Gokomera secondary school in the early 1940s.

He later joined the Southern Rhodesia Railways as a train guard before he was transferred to Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) on promotion as train conductor in 1961 and was based in Ndola.

But in 1965, he resigned to go into private business and set up his first entity, the Independence Barber shop in a building now housing Dolphin Night club on the corner of Madala and President Avenue north.

He also incorporated record sales mainly of rumba music from Congo, South Africa’s Mbaka’nga and a bit from East Africa.

In his quest to expand, Khuzwayo moved his premises to Buteko Avenue in the town centre in 1973 and included music promotion.

This is what paved the way for the establishment of the Zambia Music Parlour Limited (ZMPL), a company that lived up to its expectations.

He met Billy Nyati who was then working for Leopold Walford in Kitwe as a shipping clerk and lured him to become his accounts clerk and producer.

“Khuzwayo approached me while I was working in Kitwe so that I could become his accounts clerk and I agreed to go to Ndola and work with him. The music industry was booming then and things were looking up,” Nyati recalls.

In 1974, Khuzwayo went to Nairobi, Kenya, where he met Zambia’s legendary musicians Nashil Pitchen Kazembe and Benson Simbeye as well as former Zambian music exports to that country, the Mosi Oa Tunya (MOT).

Khuzwayo signed contracts with them and produced for Pitchen the hit song A Phiri Ana Bwera as well as Simbeye’s Uwambeyele Ulukusu Mumpanga (Nshakamulabe) before coming up with the Mot’s album, Wings of Africa in the same year.

Khuzwayo was also behind Paul Ngozi’s debut single, I have been Looking for You flip sided by We were not told in 1976.

He later discovered former Zambian Kalindula king Spokes Chola who was then based at a council tavern in Mansa, which was just next to Luka Mumba guest house and produced Chikashana wa Menso.

Zambia Music parlour promoted a total of 24 bands and individual musicians under Khuzwayo.

In 1979, he promoted a successful tour of the once famed South African ensemble, Izi ntombi Zesi Manje Manje when he visited the apartheid country.

The band then managed by Hamilton Nzimande toured the line of rail from Livingstone to Chililabombwe in the same year.

Nyati described that tour as fantastic and highly successful.

But in the late 1980s, the Zambian music scene took a new turn with the industry experiencing the problem of piracy which was relatively new in the sector and this greatly affected the ZMPL business.

“We were badly hit by piracy and we did not realise how damaging it was until very late. Infact, the whole East Africa was flooded by our music without us knowing. It was a big blow to us,” Nyati explained.

And on the other hand, Teal Record Company which was situated at where Voyagers currently is on Arusha Street, also closed due to the problem of foreign exchange coupled with piracy.

At the same time, people changed from record players to radio cassettes which promoted compact cassette music.

This forced Khuzwayo to retreat to Zimbabwe where he set up similar facilities but this too did not work well as the same problem of piracy haunted him.

In November 2009, he travelled to Zambia to attend a wedding for his first born daughter but unfortunately, his second born daughter who was on the line up died suddenly.

This somehow had a telling effect on the hypertensive Khuzwayo and was immediately hospitalised in Ndola Central Hospital where a few days later, on the Sunday night of December 20, the curtain closed on him and was no more.

Up to now, musicians still pray that another Khuzwayo incarnate should surface to rescue the local music industry and his mission was that of a brave warrior.

lusakavoice.com 

We’re a Zambian Band: Stroy of "The Witch"

Originally published by Chris A. Smith, (August 5, 2014) @ theappendix.net

The drunks at Mindolo Dam rouse themselves at our approach. A teenager in swim trunks and a sun-bleached T-shirt puts down his plastic cup and unlocks the gate. He regards us with bloodshot eyes. “Morning, boss,” he says, angling for a tip.

It’s a Sunday morning in Kitwe, a colonial-era mining town in Zambia’s Copperbelt. Clouds hang low, and the air is hazy. In the countryside, farmers are burning their fields in preparation for the rainy season. We’ve come to this recreation area to see an important part of the country’s musical history.

Emanuel “Jagari” Chanda hops out of a truck. Once upon a time, he was the country’s biggest rock star. As one of the founders of the “Zamrock” psychedelic rock scene of the 1970s, Jagari (an Africanization of Mick Jagger) was a household name. His songs were radio staples, groupies mobbed him, he always drank for free. Now sixty-plus years of age, he’s lost the Afro and gained a few pounds, but he retains a youthful, loose-limbed gait.

The recreation area sits on the edge of a manmade lake, and it’s a gently-ruined place. Jagari strides toward the water, past worn picnic tables and fire pits. Beyond the water lie the copper mines that power this central African country’s economy, open-cut gashes in the earth surrounded by heavily-rutted roads and streams running with mine tailings. Jagari grew up around here. He takes it all in, a dethroned king surveying his lost kingdom. “It’s rundown, as you can see,” he says. “Back then it was new.”

As singer for the Witch, the biggest Zamrock band, Jagari played to packed stadiums and toured across southern Africa. This recreation area was always one of his favorite venues. Often the band played from a stage backed up to the lake. The crowd—miners, soldiers, office workers, students—caught fish, barbecued, drank, and danced. Sometimes the Witch played at night, other times in the afternoon, the show peaking as the sun set over the Copperbelt.

Jagari says, “There was a kind of magic here.”

I first heard the Witch in 2008, via an mp3 blog dedicated to obscure African sounds. The music was incendiary, all crystalline guitar lines and supple rhythms, topped by Jagari’s plaintive voice. The recordings were rife with the pop and hiss of old vinyl; sometimes the music hiccupped, slurring for a moment. This only intensified the thrill of discovery. I found a few more bootlegs online, which confirmed my initial impression: something special went down in Zambia in the 1970s.

At the time, though, reliable information about either the music or the men who made it was hard to come by. How did Zamrock get started in the first place? Sub-Saharan Africa, after all, isn’t really known for its guitar rock. And where were all the musicians now?

Zamrock was the energetic sound of a nation that had just thrown off the British colonial yoke. Though Zambia is now one of the poorest countries in the world, at independence it had the second highest GDP on the continent thanks to its copper industry. Zambians expected great things—prosperity, modernization, and equal standing with the West. With its fuzzed-out guitars, propulsive beats, and cosmopolitan outlook, Zamrock provided the soundtrack to this hoped-for future.

That future never arrived. Instead the country was brought low by a series of crises, external and internal, that would render it a ward of the international community by the 1980s. The Zamrock scene, devastated by economic collapse, the AIDS epidemic, and changing musical trends, withered and died.

As for Jagari, I read that he was still alive, but it was hard to say anything else for certain. One report had him working as a foreman at a uranium mine; in another, he was a youth music mentor. A Europe-based musician who had met him emailed me a warning. “Watch out for Jagari,” he wrote. “He can be a bit of a hustler sometimes.” It wasn’t much to go on—from America I couldn’t find a phone number or an email address for him. There was only one way: a friend and I decided to travel to Zambia to track him down.

The man we found, in 2010, had cycled through many lives since his rockstar days. He had been a music teacher, gone to prison for smuggling Quaaludes—a crime he insists he didn’t commit—and found God. Eventually he became a gemstone miner, sleeping in a tent and working an open-pit mine near the Congolese border. A modern-day 49er, Jagari hoped a big score would be his ticket back into the music business.

When we met him, Jagari was unknown outside Zambia, and largely forgotten even in his own country. Since then, improbably enough, he has achieved some of the international fame that eluded him the first time around—a degree of vindication for the lost years.

At the recreation area, we walk down to a weathered dock, the drunk teenager trailing us. As we pose for photos, the kid strips off his shirt and jumps into the dark water. He paddles around self-consciously for a few minutes, as if giving a performance. Jagari ignores him. “It’s like I died and was resurrected,” he says. “That’s how I feel coming here.”

Just before midnight on October 24, 1964, the drummers muted their drumming, the lionskin dancers ceased dancing, and everything went dark. Then, at precisely 12:01 a.m., the Union Jack was lowered and the Zambian flag rose over Independence Stadium in Lusaka, the capital. Fireworks arced through the sky, and the crowd roared. The old order was dead.

Later that day, Kenneth Kaunda, a socialist and former teacher who had canvassed support for the struggle by playing “freedom songs” on his guitar, was sworn in as president. Speaking to a crowd of 200,000, Kaunda acknowledged the sacrifices of those who had fought. Independence hadn’t come bloodlessly—security forces had shot, tortured, and imprisoned hundreds—but there were sunny days ahead. He urged his fellow citizens to “rise and march forward to peace, progress, and human development and dignity.”

Zambians had reason to feel good about the future. Just three hours before independence, the government had negotiated a more equitable stake in its copper mines—which at the time provided 90 percent of the country’s foreign exchange—with the British company that had owned them since the late 1800s. Kaunda embarked on an ambitious nation-building campaign, constructing schools and training a black African professional class. The need was acute: at independence Zambia had fewer than 100 native-born college graduates.

With the copper profits rolling in, however, nothing seemed out of reach. While Zambia’s rural areas were undeveloped, the New York Times noted in 1964, its main cities were “among the most modern in Africa, with shiny, airy public buildings that many Americans and Europeans might envy.”

The Copperbelt was especially prosperous; as more black Zambians rose through the ranks, miners bought pricey suits, new cars, and Western-style houses. Photos from 1963 show the first black Africans, employees of Roan Antelope mine, in Luanshya, to move into a previously all-white neighborhood. The images carry a whiff of suburbia: housewives pose next to gleaming stoves; a man in shirtsleeves mows his tidy lawn. Simon Zukas, a liberation hero and former Member of Parliament, remembers the euphoria of the time. “There was great optimism,” he says. “The first few years were very good.”

Jagari came of age during this heady era, a member of the first generation of Zambians to grow up more urban than rural. Though born in a northern village, he was raised in the rapidly-growing Copperbelt by a brother who worked as a foreman in the mines. Middle-class by Zambian standards, Jagari attended high school, went to nightclubs as well as traditional township bars, and listened to the latest foreign records at a downtown music store. Indeed, the globalizing forces that brought the ideas of Marx and Fanon to inland Africa also brought the sounds of the British Invasion. To young Zambians like Jagari, the Fender Stratocaster was the sound of modernity.

By the late 1960s there were dozens of rock groups scattered throughout Lusaka and the Copperbelt. Some of these bands just imitated their Western idols, but the best of them mixed the pop sensibilities of the Beatles, the fuzz guitars of Cream, and indigenous kalindula rhythms, creating something distinctly Zambian. There were standard-issue tunes of broken hearts, but other songs displayed a profoundly non-Western take on the world. A band named Amanaz, singing in one of Zambia’s seventy-two different languages, charted the continent’s journey from slavery to independence. Paul Ngozi sang of the nightmares he endured after renting a house next to a graveyard.

The Witch, an acronym for “We Intend to Cause Havoc,” was the most popular band in the country. Along with another pioneering group, Rikki Ililonga’s Musi-O-Tunya, they forged the path that others would follow. As Eothen Alapatt, who runs Now-Again records in Los Angeles and has reissued a host of Zamrock albums, puts it, the two bands were “the scene godfathers, the inspiration for them all.”

Jagari joined the Witch in 1971, while he was still in high school. His older brother disapproved—“rock star” was no career for an educated Zambian—so he ran away from home. He finished high school but never looked back. The band’s first two albums, with simple-but-catchy songs and one-take production values, were hits. It wasn’t until the third album, 1975’s Lazy Bones, that the Witch hit its stride. Driving and often dark, with melancholy melodies and acid-laced guitar playing, the album sold 7,000 copies its first week—huge numbers for the place and time. Alapatt calls it “a masterpiece—not just of Zamrock, but of psychedelic rock in general.”

The band’s live shows, meanwhile, became the stuff of legend. While the band vamped behind him, Jagari jumped into the crowd from balconies, gyrated like a dervish, screamed or sang as the spirit took him. Shows often went for six hours or more. Typically, they began with an hour of instrumentals followed by a few cover songs—“Sympathy for the Devil,” maybe, or Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re an American Band.” Jagari modified the lyrics to that one: “We called it ‘We’re a Zambian band.’ People liked it that way.” Some nights, the crowd demanded to hear the band’s hit songs two or three times over.

Soon the Witch was headlining stadiums across the country. Errol Hickey, the former chairperson of Lusaka’s Radio Phoenix, Zambia’s only independent station, says, “Those were the only places that could hold them—they could draw a couple of thousand people, easy.”

In some ways, the Zambian rockers were similar to their Western counterparts. Sporting luxuriant Afros, platform boots and voluminous bellbottoms, Zamrockers defied the prevailing conservative attitudes. Sometimes the Witch went onstage with artfully torn clothing, or women’s underwear over their jeans. Keith Kabwe, who sang for Amanaz and is now a Pentecostal pastor, wore a skeleton costume and jumped out of a coffin onstage, a la Screamin’ Jay Hawkins .

Such antics occasionally got them into trouble. One October evening in 1974, the Witch was playing a show in a tony Lusaka neighborhood when the police showed up. The Minister of Home Affairs, no rock ‘n’ roll fan, lived nearby. Jagari and his bandmates were charged with “noisemaking to annoyance” and thrown into Kamwala prison for three days.

Alcohol and drugs, meanwhile, were everywhere. Some used speed and acid, but weed was by far the most common drug. Jagari says he drank a bit but otherwise abstained. Others indulged. “We smoked,” Kabwe says, laughing. “We smoked a lot! There was hard stuff here. Once you’d pull it, you’d be seeing things.”

And then there were the women. In Ndola, the administrative capital of the Copperbelt, I meet a teacher who tells me that she grew up going to Witch shows. Her best friend, she adds, once dated Jagari—“he was so crazy.” When I mention the woman to Jagari, he says he doesn’t remember her, but he’s not surprised. “Everybody had groupies.”

Even at the best of times it wasn’t a lucrative life. Instruments were expensive and payment low. A Copperbelt record label, Edward Khuzwayo’s Music Parlour, was known for treating bands fairly, but that was the exception. As Wayne Barnes, who played guitar for Musi-O-Tunya, recalls in an interview with Alapatt, “There were some really shady whites running nearly all the record companies in Africa.”

Still, Jagari got by. The band toured constantly, from Botswana to Kenya—in Malawi, they received a police escort on the way to a concert for the local diplomatic corps. They recorded two more albums of increasing sophistication, which incorporated strong African and Latin elements. The years passed, and Jagari dared to dream of more—London, New York, Los Angeles.

Zambia’s golden years didn’t last. By the late 1970s the price of copper had plummeted. Inflation spiked, and the mines slashed their workforces. There were lines for bread, shortages of salt. The government had nationalized the mines, and it proved disastrous. To pay off its creditors, Zambia borrowed more. The economic death spiral tightened.

Meanwhile, there was chaos on the borders. Mozambique and Angola were fighting civil wars, and black rebels in Rhodesia, Zambia’s southern twin under colonial rule, were engaged in an insurgency against the white government. Zambia, which sheltered Zimbabwean and South African guerrillas, suffered under curfews and blackouts, its power stations bombed by the apartheid state’s security forces. While Kaunda’s government foiled a coup attempt in 1980, an uprising in the country’s remote northwest simmered for years. Led by an ex-game warden named Adamson Mushala, the rebels burned villages and press-ganged children into service. People said Mushala could render himself invisible, and shape-shift into a giant bird. More credible were the reports of his South African backing.

In response to these pressures, the once-progressive liberation government turned increasingly authoritarian. It wasn’t a dictatorship, exactly, but you had to watch your step. Informers were everywhere. As Hickey puts it, “If you said ‘Kaunda is shit’ you’d go into jail for a few years.”

For the Zamrockers, it was all bad news. The curfew reduced bands to playing “tea-time” shows, which greatly limited their audience. Tastes were changing, too, as disco and Congolese rumba began to supplant rock as the new sound of urban Zambia. Finally, piracy was on the rise; bootleggers copied Zamrock albums in Nairobi then sold them throughout Zambia.

 

It had never been easy to be a fulltime rock musician in Zambia. Now, with little money to record or tour, it was almost impossible. Jagari bailed out. He had just married his wife, Grace, and they were starting a family. In 1980 he landed a job teaching music at a Lusaka college (He would go on to major in music and English). He spent the next years studying and working to support his growing family.

Jagari was lucky in one respect. He got out just before AIDS decimated the Zamrock community. One by one, his former bandmates succumbed to the virus—the last on Christmas Eve in 2001. “Musicians in Zambia are very careless with life,” says his wife Grace. “Jagari’s not better than the ones who died. He could have been gone as well.”

In 1993, though, things went horribly wrong. Jagari was arrested and charged with trying to pick up a shipment of Mandrax (the southern African name for Quaaludes) from India at the Lusaka airport. He denies having any knowledge of the illegal drugs in the boxes; acquaintances tricked him, he says, into letting them use his ID. “I have never even been to India,” he says. The judge didn’t buy it, and sentenced him to a couple of years in prison.

When he emerged from prison he was broke and pushing 50. He had lost both his job and his home. Gradually, he found a new path. He became a born-again Christian, giving up alcohol and womanizing. As much as he loved making music, it seemed out of the question—he needed money. “Maybe God is saying something to me,” he thought. “Maybe it was my turning point to do other things.”

He became a miner.

Zambia is the size of Texas, with a population of 14 million. As we touched down in Lusaka, the capital, in 2010, we worried that we wouldn’t be able to find Jagari.

We needn’t have. Within a day of our arrival we were sitting across a table from Jagari’s oldest son, Dale, who we had found through a mutual acquaintance. The son of a woman Jagari dated in the 1970s, Dale was an easy-talking 32-year-old who had worked as a traveling salesman, a gemstone miner and seller, and a political campaigner. He hadn’t really known his father as a child; the two reconnected after Dale, then 18, read a newspaper article in which Jagari said, “I don’t know where my son is, but I love him.”

Dale informs us that his dad is “in the bush” at his open-pit mine in Mansa, in the red-dirt highlands along the Congo border. Gemstone mining is a common occupation in Zambia. While the country’s organized mining business is the province of multinationals, tens of thousands of Zambians lease small digging concessions from the government, scratching out a living with shovels and sweat. The area around Mansa is rich in citrine, amethyst, and black tourmaline. Jagari and two Senegalese business partners had been working their plot for about a decade. They hadn’t yet struck it rich. Hope, as they say, springs eternal.

A plan comes together: Jagari will take a minibus to meet us in Kitwe, the Copperbelt city where he grew up. I give Dale money to wire to his dad for bus fare, even though we’re not sure yet if Dale’s for real. He’s already floated the idea of a joint real estate deal; it’s possible that he’s conning us clueless mzungu (“white people”). He speaks movingly, however, of his relationship with Jagari, and of his desire for his father to get the recognition that he deserves.

The next morning, we pile into a rented pickup truck and drive the 200-plus miles to Kitwe. The Copperbelt road, a narrow stretch of tarmac punctuated by small roadside settlements, is mostly empty. There are occasional checkpoints; they provide opportunities, Dale explains, for poorly paid cops to extract bribes from minibus passengers. Every so often, an 18-wheeler carrying oil to the mines appears on the horizon. Other cars pull to the roadside like submissive dogs, huddled against the force of the rig’s passage.

We meet Jagari at an upscale miner’s bar that evening. Dressed in a leather bomber jacket and a baseball cap, he looks more like a suburban dad than a rock star. But the magnetism that once captivated audiences seems to be intact. He flirts with the waitress, a sly smile on his face, and as the DJ plays auto-tuned hip hop he recounts his life story. A group of younger Zambian guys gathers at the other end of the table. They haven’t heard of him, but one guy leans in, listening raptly. He yells over the music: “Respect!”

A few days later I meet Jagari in downtown Lusaka, a sprawling city that makes up for in friendliness what it lacks in organization. He arrives in an old Japanese car, wearing an oversize white tunic and matching pants. Markers of the gemstone business are strewn about the car. A bag of citrines sits in the console between the seats; he has an appointment later to get them cut and polished. We drive around, listening to the Hollies.

The sidewalk outside the public library is crowded with men doing gemstone deals, coming together to negotiate and then breaking apart to mutter into their cellphones. Some of the stones were mined legally; some certainly were not. Overall, Zambia’s economy is booming, buoyed by the mines and Chinese investment. Apartment blocks and mega-malls are rising all across Lusaka, but there are few new jobs. Sixty-four percent of Zambians still live below the poverty line; more than 80 percent work in the “informal” economy.

I ask Jagari about the Witch’s legacy. He reminisces about the time they opened a show for British-Ghanaian Afro-rockers Osibisa. With more ambition and business savvy, he muses, perhaps the Witch could have gone international—a Zambian Osibisa. But they were too comfortable being big fish in a small pond. “We never took the risks.”

While he plays occasional oldies gigs, Jagari still dreams of getting back into music full-time. If he can find the money, he’d like to open a music school and a recording studio. “That’s why I go into the bush to look for stones.”

At noon, we take the elevator up to the eleventh floor at Radio Phoenix. Errol Hickey, the station’s former chairperson, has arranged for us to appear on a national radio show. As Jagari tunes his guitar, the host, a young guy named Luchi, tells me that he hadn’t heard the Witch until now.

On-air, Jagari plays a few Witch classics. His voice is raspy, weathered by the years. Near the end, he launches into a song called “It’s Alright.” It’s a love song, but today it ends up sounding more like a statement of defiance.

Listeners call in to speak to Jagari. One says he saw him perform at Mindolo Dam. Another asks about a comeback: when will he start playing out again? “Give me kwacha [the Zambian unit of currency], man, to organize the shows,” Jagari replies. “And I’ll be there.”

I left Zambia the next day. Back home in San Francisco, I wrote a couple of articles about Zamrock and kept in occasional touch with Jagari. I never expected to see him again; Lusaka is a long way from California.

Over the next few years, though, Jagari’s star began to rise. Ben Phiri, a journalist from Ndola who has written more than 70 columns on Zamrock for the Times of Zambia, says that young Zambians are “slowly awakening” to their rock ‘n’ roll heritage. “They marvel when they listen to Zamrock. They think Zambians could not have done that.”

Meanwhile, Alapatt’s Los Angeles record label, Now-Again, kept pumping out Zamrock reissues. In 2011, he arranged for Jagari to speak at a music conference in Madrid. The following year, Jagari played two well-received shows in France with fellow Zamrock survivor Rikki Ililonga. There was a Chinese documentary film, and a South African one is due for release this year. Bit by bit, Jagari’s profile grew. I was happy for him: at long last he was getting some of the recognition that had escaped him in his youth.

Then, one morning last spring, I woke to the news that he was coming to America.

The first Zamrock concert in North America takes place in Los Angeles in May 2013, and is followed by another in San Francisco in June. For both shows Jagari is backed by a crack group of LA jazz-funk musicians. Billed as “Zamrock Live!” the LA show is a private concert at a Hollywood art space. The crowd is small but appreciative, and it is wonderful and a little surreal to see Jagari on an American stage, roughly 10,000 miles from where I last saw him. We embrace like old friends after the show.

In San Francisco, Jagari opens for the indie beatmaker and DJ Madlib, and the nightclub is packed. Most of the crowd probably doesn’t know who he is, but they go nuts anyway. In response, Jagari turns back the clock. He jumps and screams, flirts and teases, runs in place like Mick Jagger and duckwalks like Chuck Berry. The closer, “October Night”—a song about the band’s 1974 arrest for playing too loud—sprawls into a nine-minute, Latin-infused space jam. He exits the stage, and it feels like a triumph.

Backstage, Jagari chats with fans, still flush with adrenaline. I ask Alapatt if there are more shows in the works. He shakes his head. “This is it, man,” he says. “I don’t know how to get him back over here.” A number of African bands, of course, tour America regularly. The Malian desert-blues band Tinariwen, for example, whose members wear turbans and cultivate a sort of revolutionary chic, come through California just about every year. Jagari’s music and image, though, isn’t nearly so exotic—he mostly sings in English, and mostly plays a recognizable form of rock ‘n’ roll. Discussing it later, Alapatt says, “Perhaps that just doesn’t fit with the modern booker’s idea of what music from this part of the world ‘should’ sound like.”

Jagari makes the most of his time here. He records some new songs, two of which Alapatt releases as a single: a 1960s-style pop number and a haunting adaptation of a traditional Zambian song about witchcraft. I spend some time playing tour guide in both cities. We eat burritos and drive out to the ocean, watch the surfers and take photos, debate the meaning of life and whether or not the members of Black Sabbath were Satanists (he says yes; I say no). He is philosophical about his late resurgence. “I had hoped for this much earlier,” he says. “But that’s the human point of view. God saw it differently. He was grooming me for the challenge.”

On his last night in America, Jagari comes over to the apartment I share with my girlfriend. Grabbing my acoustic guitar, he gives us an impromptu lesson. Eyes shining, sweat beading on his forehead, he leans into the instrument, working the strings and singing in a soulful growl. “You should practice each skill until it is automatic,” he says, his fingers moving nimbly up and down the frets. He smiles and adds, “Then you are prepared for anything.”

 Originally published by Chris A. Smith, (August 5, 2014) @ theappendix.net

Zamrock @ nowagain: Jagari Chanda

WITCH’s bandleader Jagari Chanda’s first recordings in over thirty five years – digital 7″ available now at Now-Again Deluxe!

This is a special release: WITCH’s bandleader Jagari Chanda’s first recordings since Zamrock’s most beloved band after their release of the Including Janet album! They were recorded in L.A. when he traveled to the USA for the first time to play a private show that we threw in conjunction with Urban Outfitters in Hollywood.

How, you ask? Well, it went something like this: our pal, the producer Luther Russell (you’ll be hearing more about him later this year), is as big of a WITCH fan as is Patrick Bailey, the guitar and bass player who assembled the band to learn and play WITCH’s Zamrock classics in L.A. (and a part of the great Jungle Fire and Ethio Cali ensembles).

Jagari had an idea for a song he wanted to record – a Zamrock take on a Zambian standard about – you guessed it – witchcraft. He met up with Russell and Bailey, recorded his ideas straight to tape (with Russell on drums and Bailey on bass), and rounded out the session with some acoustic songs that had been banging around in his head.

And then he went back to Zambia. Never to be seen in America again. Well, not quite. Madlib invited him up to play at the San Francisco Sounds of Zamrock Madlib Medicine Show extravaganza and Russell, overjoyed to be able to present Jagari with a most special gift, went back to his studio with Bailey and some friends and overdubbed the parts Jagari had told him he wanted to hear in the final arrangements. We presented the songs to Jagari in S.F., and he was overjoyed. And, well, we were too. So we’re giving these songs away to our subscribers at Now-Again Deluxe.

nowagainrecords.com

Subscribe @: https://drip.fm/nowagain

More zamrock ... THE WITCH interview ...

By the mid 1970s, the Southern African nation known as the Republic of Zambia had fallen on hard times. The new Federation found itself under party rule. Zambia’s then-president engaged what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in a political fencing match that damaged his country’s ability to trade with its main partner. The Portuguese colonies of Angola to the West and Mozambique to the East were fighting their own battles for independence; conflict loomed on all sides of this landlocked nation.

This is the environment in which the catchy – if misleadingly – titled “Zam Rock” scene that flourished in 1970s Zambian cities such as Lusaka and Chingola emerged. Though full of beacons of hope for its numerous musical hopeful it was a tumultuous time and it’s no wonder that the Zambian musicians taken by European and English influences gravitated to the hard, dark side of the rock and funk spectrum. From the little of the Zambian 70s rock and funk music that has been spread via small blogs and bootlegs – the likes of Chrissy Zebby, Paul Ngozi and the Ngozi Family, and the devastating Peace – we learn that fuzz guitars were commonplace, driving rhythms as influenced by James Brown’s funk as Jimi Hendrix’s rock predominated, and the bands largely sang in the country’s national language, English. (http://www.nowagainrecords.com)

 

Interview:

It's a truly great pleasure to talk with you Emmanuel "Jagari" Chanda. I'd mostly like to talk about two things. Firstly about scene itself and then about your band in particular. Let's start at the beginning. What do you think was the moment when you began listening to rock music. It was hard and almost impossible for you to buy records, so the only way was probably via radio stations?

 

I started listening to pop music first on the radio in the early ‘60s as a young boy-it was the DJ’s choice-e.g. "Top Of The Pops", "Beat In Germany" and Mozambiques forerunner to "Maputo Lorenzo Marica Hits Parade". My late elder brother George, who brought me up, had a radio and a record player, but his taste was Jim Reeves’ type of music, mine was more of Cliff Richard, Beatles, Hollies, Monkeys, Manfred Mann, Troggs, Rolling Stones, Dave Clark Five, Elvis Presley, and the like. The rock influence came slightly later, after I listened to Deep Purple, Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Free, Alice Cooper, Santana, Black Sabbath, etc. This time I had access to records through friends and schoolmates as Teal Records Company and Zambia Music Parlor came into the scene.

'WITCH' was the first band that released an LP. But were artists such as Paul Ngozi or Rikki Ililonga, already established as musicians? They didn't record yet anything at the time, right?

 

Paul Ngozi, whose real name is Paul Nyirongo, was first in 'The Scorpions' and 'The 3 Years Before', before he formed the 'Ngozi Family'. He changed his name to Paul Ngozi when he went solo. The same is true for Rikki Ililonga who had been in many bands, including 'Mosi-o-Tunya' before he went solo. Both were established/experienced musicians playing live gigs in various clubs and places. Rikki and Paul settled in Lusaka while the 'WITCH' were in Kitwe (about 340 kilometers apart). But recordings by various bands and solo artists only came after 'WITCH', and when Teal Records and Zambia Music Parlor started signing on musicians from the mid-1970s onward.

What did the very early beginnings of the scene look like? I'm thinking prior to 'WITCH'. Was there actually anything connected with rock music? Anything not recorded at the time but played in concerts?

 

Yes, there were unrecorded bands, both along the Copperbelt (copper mining towns near one another, about 40-50 kilometers apart) and Lusaka (the capital city of Zambia). From the Copperbelt we had at least a band or two in each town. Kitwe had 'The Black Souls', 'Red Balloons', 'The Boy Friends' (later 'The Peace'), 'Peanuts', 'Fire Balls' etc. Ndola had 'The Yatagana', 'Armanaz', 'Black Foot', '5 Revolutions', 'Upshoots', etc. In Luanshya there were 'The Twikels' and 'Black Jesus', while in Mufulira there was 'The Gas Company' (later On Paper). 'The Oscillations' were in Bancroft (later to become 'Chililabombwe'). I cannot remember any bands in Chingola, another of the Copperbelt towns. There were also many bands in Lusaka, such as 'Rev 5', 'Salty Dog', 'MIGS', 'Lusaka Beatles' (later 'The Earth Quakes'), 'Mkusi', 'Cross Town Traffic', 'Born Free' (later 'Cross Bones'), 'He/She Mambo', 'Explosives', etc.

What year did 'WITCH' form? How did you meet the guys and what were their names? I know you'd begun being musicians at early ages in school, where you were all classmates. Those bands never recorded anything, but I would like you to tell us the musicians names and how you came to form 'The WITCH'.

 

'The WITCH' was formed in 1971-1972. It was first called 'The Kingstone Market' but after some members left the band Chris Mbewe, Wingo, and George Kunda (known as Groovy Joe) and I remained in Kitwe to become 'The WITCH'. I was recruited by Groovy Joe after he saw me jam with 'The Red Balloons', 'The Boy Friends' and at some school performances (I was at Chaboli Secondary/High School). I was in the same class as two members of The Black Souls (Jeff Mushinge and Leonard "Lee" Bwalya. Later on Groovy Joe and Wingo left 'The WITCH'. They were replaced by Boyd Sinkala ('Black Souls'), John "Music" Muwia and Gideon Mwamulenga ('Boy Friends'). So the new lineup was: Chris Mbewe (lead guitar), John Muma (and guitar and vocals), Gideon Mwamulenga (bass), Boyd Sinkala (drums) and myself (vocals and percussion). This is the lineup that recorded the album "Introduction". We later added Paul "Jones" Mumba on organ.

 

'WITCH' is an acronym for "We Intend to Cause Havoc". How did you come up with such a name?

 

'The WITCH' was coined by the late 'Wingo'. It was picked from a sound effect (wah wah) "footswitch". He removed "foot" and suggested "Switch". Then we removed the "S" leaving 'WITCH', like a witch on a broom stick, but later a graphic artist (our friend in Kitwe) coined the acronym "We Intend To Cause Havoc".

You formed in second largest city of Zambia called Kitwe. Was the Zam Rock scene only in this city or was it across the whole country?

 

The Zamrock scene was a common feature along the whole line of rail in Zambia (the urban towns) from the border town Chiliabombwe (near Congo D.R.C.) through the Copperbelt, from Kabwe and Lusaka to Livingstone (the last town before Zimbabwe). There were similar performances at clubs, festivals, agricultural and commercial shows, trade fairs etc. in these cities, probably because the sources of music and the influences were similar. The rural areas were not so much influenced by Zamrock or pop music and instead played mostly ethnic traditional music on various occasions and ceremonies. Part of this rural music is the Kalindula genre.

In 1972 you released your first LP called "Introduction", which is probably the first Zam Rock LP.   Previously  there were only 'Musi-O-Tunyas' singles. This album is one of the first indicators of how pure and catchy Zambian garage rock can be. This was private release of 300 copies if I recall correctly and you went to Nairobi to record it. Would you like to share with us some of your memories from recording this LP? I would also like to know what kind of gear you guys used. Also, what can you tell me about the cover artwork?

 

 

"Introduction" and "In The Past" were recorded at Malachite Studio in Chingola (Copperbelt); "Lazy Bones” was recorded at DB Studio in Lusaka; but "Lukombo Vibes" and 'WITCH' (including Janet)"  were recorded at Sapra Studio in Nairobi, Kenya. The music qualities and studio professionalism graduated to better as we progressed in the recordings. 'Sapra' was the best of all the studios we had used. Mr. Debef, the sound engineer was the most experimental of them all. The local recordings were just like a stage live performance, done in mono, and if one made a mistake we had to start all over again as a band. The common gear was bell bottom trousers; high heeled shoes and afro hair do (Black American/Jimi Hendrix style of those days). The album artwork of "Introduction" depicted a new thing coming down from Heaven. The "Lukombo Vibes" artwork was my concept. Lukombo is a drinking cup/gourd in my language. For the back cover I was thinking of a lonely banished/outcast traditional composer (not in the picture) as he saw his dwelling place deserted. "Lazy Bones" was for the ladies and girls who believe men should fend for them all the way, waiting for spoon feeding.

 

Brand of gear – we used different types
- Fender, Yamaha, Marshall for amplifiers
- P.A. system: Dynacord and Yamaha

- Guitars: Gibson (Les Paul), Fender (Stratocaster),

- Mics: variety, including »Shure«

Chris Ideally preferred Fender, but we had only a few choices depending on what "Piano House" stocked at the time.

Trick of the Trade:

When we started managing our selves/own affairs (apart from contractual recording obligation).

- We devised a work schedule for rehearsal; from 09:00hrs to 13:00hrs (Monday to Thursday) – own compositions: 14:00hrs to 17:00hrs copyrights (usually western pop/rock music).

- No girlfriends were allowed in the rehearsal room (so that everyone was free to agree or disagree with bands' direction of rehearsal).

- We kept some money in the band, and only got $200 out of pocket allowances each per week (reason being: all royalties went to redeem the musical equipment on live shows in come).

- Later on, we rotated band leadership every six months in order to share responsibilities and develop the scene of ownership and belonging (even though in the practical sense the rotation was only amongs, Gideon, Chris and myself).

- Driving of our van to transport the equipment was restricted to Chris, because he was the most sober of the lot. Boyd drove too, only when Chris either unwell or too tired.

The LP was selling at shows. How did people react when they heard a local band on vinyl?

 

People were quite excited and we would have sold a lot more if it had not been that one member (usually myself) had to go and have master stamps and records done in Kenya for limited copies before Teal Record Company came on the scene to start printing records.

 

Two years later you released another LP called "In the Past" which was again privately released but was reissued the same year by the legendary label, 'ZMP' (Zambia Music Parlour LTD). It was founded by Edward Khuzwayo and was located in Ndola. How did he get in contact with you? In fact would you tell us what you know about the beginning of this label, which released most of the Zam Rock stuff. Who was Edward?

 

Zambia Music Parlour, owned by Edward Khzwayo started as one of the first distributors of records which were printed/pressed by Teal Records, also in Nidola. In addition to that he managed 3 bands:  'The Twinkies', '5 Revolutions' and 'Black Foot'. He lived in the neighboring town of Luanshya but operated most of his businesses in Ndola. I am told that he had worked for Zambia Railways before he left to set up his own company. He was originally from either Bulawayo or Prum Tree in Zimbabwe. His right hand man, David Billy Nyat, help him run the bands, including supervising their recordings. Sometimes he also sang with 'Black Foot'. When 'WITCH' parted company with their manager, Mr. Phillip Musonda, due to some contractual differences, I approached both Teal Records and Zambia Music Parlour for possible management of the band and sale of our master tapes ("Introduction" and "In The Past"). Mr. Musonda took his musical equipment from the band despite the fact that we had contributed to its purchase. So we demanded our master tapes back. He paid for our music being recorded but we composed the music. Finally we resolved to go our separate ways amicably. We sold the master tapes to Mr. Khuzwayo and signed a 4 year recording contract with Teal Records. Mr. Musonda took one third of the proceeds and we called it a day. I personally got along fairly well with Mr. Khuzwayo.

Back in 1972 ZMP released Blackfoot's "Minnie" album, another great example of Zamrock. There is another band you might help me to get more information about. It's called 'The Peace'. I know they were from Andola and they released album called "Black Power", but I don't know when it was released and I don't know anything about them. Can you tell our readers who they were, because the album is a great example of fuzzy psychedelic rock.

 

 

'The Peace' was formed after its forerunner, 'Boy Friends', broke up. John Mums and Gideon were part of 'Boy Friends' before they came to join 'WITCH'. The manager/leader was Ted Makombe. His parents came from Zimbabwe. The band was based in Kitwe rather than Ndora. Ted has since passed on, but I am in touch with his brother and sister. His children are still around too. Ted was a personal friend of mine. I cannot remember which year the "Black Power" album was actually released.

 

Let's move forward through your discography. Probably your most well known LP is called "Lazy Bones!!"  It was released in 1975 on Teal Records from Bulawayo, Matabeleland, North Zimbabwe. Before the LP came out you also released a couple of singles and one of them sold out around 7000 copies, which is absolutely amazing. How many copies do you think the LP sold? Where did you record it and what are some of your strongest memories from producing and recording this amazing LP?

 

 

Teal Records Company came from South Africa, not Zimbabwe. I believe its sister company is Gallo Records. The "Lazy Bones" LP actually sold over 7,000 copies. I am not sure of the singles sales. "Lazy Bones" was The WITCH’s first album under the Teal Records contract and the first taste of a more serious studio. Ms. Niki and Mrs. Skinner managed the studio and Peter Musungilo was their sound engineer.

 

You released two more albums, can you tell me their names? The production and songwriting improved with each album. I know there was a moment when you could afford to buy a new gear. What did you buy?

 

"Lukomo Vibes" and "WITCH (Including Hit Single Janet)" were our 4th and 5th albums. Yes, indeed the music, arrangements and lyrics were progressive. Another guy, Shadreck Bwalya joined hands with me (we both finished our high school while the rest of the band members did not) so it was easier for the two of us to write English lyrics. He got paid for songwriting, but not as a full band member. We got a 15,000 kwacha (Zambian currency) loan from Teal Records Company to buy our own set of musical instruments so all the royalties from the records under contract went to offset the loan and the band lived on the income from live shows/performances. We had put ourselves on monthly wages and that’s where we got our up keep money and gear (uniforms and personal tastes). We had velvet (black and maroon) uniforms for special shows like weddings. There was no formality in terms of gear, anything would do.

 

Music composition and arrangement: Anyone would bring ideas – tune/lyrics but usually the band agreed on the arrangement. On "INTRODUCTION" and "IN THE PAST", the music was done and recorded almost at random and in haste – not much work was put in because we were anxious to put our works on wax/vinyl. However, later on we were more serious, sensitive to critists and we had an extra head in Shadiki Bwalya – together we pooled ideas. There were also some rare cases of one person putting the whole piece of music/song together while the rest of the band just added a little touch or flavour to the piece ("The way I feel" by Boyd Sakala; "The only way" - my self; "Nazungwa", Chris Mbewe) etc.

 

You once mentioned that concerts were very long and not properly organized. You just started playing and then people came. Would you like to share a little about that?

 

Sometimes we were hired to perform at social functions, promotions of goods and services, weddings, etc. At other times we booked venues ourselves, put up posters and played there while someone else sold beverages and food. The shows varied between 2 to 6 hours with 30 minute breaks every 1 ½ to 2 hours.

The largest concerts were at music festivals, Agricultural and commercial shows and trade fair stinst - The arenas were big and people only paid at the gate to see many different exhibitions (including musical bonds who were hired by show organizers/companies exhibiting at the show) other wise its not easy to pinpoint one of the biggest show in nine years I was with the band.

The most prestigious concert was in Lilongwe, Malawi in 1974/5. The band had police escort on the way from Blantyre to Lilongwe and we had diplomats in the audience. Curtains raising for 'Osibisa' was also remarkable.

 

Payments for band performances varied with the type of shows e.g. for a wedding up to $400 plus transport (plus drinks and food); teen – time (after noon) shows 14:00hrs to 19:00hrs realized between $200 and $300. Night clubs or sessions where $1500 plus transport per show (from 19:00 hrs to 02:00hrs) or up $2000 sometimes when the band hired venues and collected gate takings or shared gate takings with venue owners 50/50 or 60/40 while someone else sold beverages at shows if it was not a night club. Gate charges were $2 per person – usually at night – 50C per person for teen – time (this included school going audiences).

Let's get back to the beginning of the scene. One of the major influences or breakthroughs if you prefer was 'Osibisa'. Did they tour your country or how did you were you so influenced by them?

 

We once opened for 'Osibisa' when they toured Zambia and played in Kitwe at Nkana Stadium. We had the privilege of mingling with the band members and asked them questions and observed their organization. They were musical, happy going, quite sure of themselves, very creative and energetic; they were marvelous to watch and listen to. They definitely influenced my approach to fusing an African touch to my rock compositions, as could be seen on the "Lukombo Vibes" album which my band recorded after our experiences with 'Osibisa'. Personally, Ted Osei (their band leader) inspired and encouraged me to go to the school of music, which I did in 1977.

In an interview you did with Egon you mention bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Grand Funk Railroad, Deep Purple and Jimi Hendrix as influences. Were there any other artists you liked at the time?

 

Apart from those groups I also listened to a lot of other Western music, such as Albert Hammond, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Bread, The Doors, etc.

 

 

Let's get back to some of the releases. Paul Ngozy is one of the better known names. What do you know about him. Were you friends? He released some really amazing albums first in english and then deciding to use one of your language on late 70's albums.

 

 

Yes Paul Ngozi was a personal friend. I was one of the pall bearers at his funeral. He was friendly and a tribal cousin (in Zambian people from the Northern and Eastern parts of the country regard one another as cousins after a historical war they fought many centuries ago). I came from the North and he came from the East. He was a rocker with a central theme of social commentary in most of his lyrics. English was not one of his favored languages. 

 

One of the best LP's was "My Ancestors" by 'Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family'. Chrissy was a drummer who later also started a solo career. Who all was in 'the Ngozi Family'?
 

 The other guys I remember in the 'Ngozi Family' were Peter Bwalya (bass) later replaced by Justin Nyirongo, Scare (drums), and Jasper Lungu (2nd guitar/vocals), but I was not in constant check with the changes in the lineup.  There were several.        

 

One of the most important groups from the scene was 'Musi-O-Tunya', which featured an amazing guitarist who later released several solo albums. His name was Rikki Ililonga. Another amazing guitarist was Keith Mlevhu. Mlevhu played for 'The Real Five' and who else? I know he recorded some solo albums later with great heavy guitar work on them.

 

Keith Mlevu (Shem Mulevu was his real name) was one of Zambia’s most accomplished musicians and guitarists. I first saw and heard him play during a music festival at Jubilee Hall in Lusaka, during my school holidays when I visited my grandfather in Lusaka. Keith was impressive with his solos and vocals. His band was called 'The Rev 5'. They mostly mimicked The Rolling Stones while the Lusaka Beatles, later 'Earth Quakes', followed the Beatles style. He later left and played with various groups before he went solo.  

 

Its interesting, that instrumental music was not very popular, with a few exceptions including Rikki's work. The main thing was rhythm. You once mentioned  that  the rhythms rather than the harmonies are most important in your music.

Yes, in my study of African music. I have discovered that the strength of African music is crisscross rhythmic patterns that provoke reactions from the participants who are tempted to dance along. The vocals are usually call and response with short lines of verses and 2 to 3 harmonic parts which are not notated. The Western music can sometimes be quite complicated in arrangements, melodies and harmonies, e.g. orchestras and choirs.

 

Do you think that there is a certain reflection of war times in your music? Not just in yours but in Zamrock  music in general, which kind of settled down and create an atmosphere we can hear on the records?

Zambia has never experienced any serious war per se, even though we supported a lot of freedom fighters from around us, such as Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique. Maybe what you hear in some Zamrock music has to do with cries and protests by artists so as to be recognized and respected in society by the authorities that be. Usually, musicians were regarded as failures in most parts of our society, such that no one wanted to marry their daughters off to musicians. In my band’s case "Tooth Factory" and "Black Tears" reflect these conflicts. Once we were arrested for "noise making to annoyance". The Home Affairs Minister ordered our arrest during a performance at a nightclub near his home so I wrote "October Nights" while in police custody. It took protests from our fans to secure our release after 2 or 3 nights (the arrest was on Zambia’s Independence Eve).

Circumstances were hard for you guys in Zambia. For instance when the Paul Ngozi got a record deal and released his album, but he still went to Nairobi and printed out bootlegs of his albums.

Maybe I missed that Paul Ngozi turn of events but what I know is that at one point in Zambia we had a censorship board which banned or could disallow certain songs being played on national radio if that’s what you are referring to. Insulting songs or those criticizing government policies were considered to be in bad taste, for instance.

Was the scene influenced by any psychedelic or other sort of drugs or perhaps rituals? I don't mean just your band, but in general?

Marijuana was a common feature in Zambia’s rural set ups, before it became illegal. Some villagers believed it gave them desire and push to go an extra mile while working on their fields to grow more food. Likewise most musicians and artists in general, as well as some athletes used it with a belief that it increased their creativity and zeal. There were no rituals during Zamrock shows, nothing like the "Woodstock" scenario either. Fans smoked privately too, especially those who could not afford beer and hard drinks to help them enjoy the gigs.

There is one band I want to ask you about. They were called Amanaz and they came out of your town and formed around late 1973 and recorded absolutely amazing LP called "Africa" in 1975 on ZMP label? What are perhaps some other bands, that we didn't mention yet?
 

"Armanz" were based in Ndola. There are still two living members of this group. Keith Kabwe (drums/vocals) is now a Penticostal Pastor in Mbala, a town in the Northern part of Zambia, while Isaac Mpofu (lead guitar/vocals) is now a farmer in Chongwe, a suburb east of Lusaka. Your other info on the band is correct. There were many other Zamrock/Pop groups around that either recorded one LP or never recorded their music for one reason or the other, e.g. Oscilations, Mkushi, Fire Fballs, Sentries, Explosives, Upshoots, Salty Dog, etc. in addition to those I have mentioned previously.

 

I know 'WITCH' toured some neighboring countries. How did citizens in neighboring countries react to your music? Besides Nigeria you were the only country that had rock music. In fact the only country who invented something musically. Nigeria was in my opinion highly influenced by Ginger Baker experimentations.

We never toured Nigeria, but we recorded in Kenya, performed in Tanzania (Bahai Beach), Malawi (almost the entire country), Zimbabwe (few towns), Swaziland, Botswana (many towns), and almost all the provinces of Zambia. I do not remember experiencing flops in these areas, some of our music was rather new to them so our repertoire was a mix of Western songs and our own compositions. My band was highly talented so it was easy for us to read our audience’s expectations and adapt to the occasion. Generally the band was appreciated and well received. We were quite entertaining and a lovable bunch.

Out of the scene there was another genre born called "Kalindula". The most well known representatives were the "Five Revolutions" I believe. Would you care to share a few words about this genre. It was mainly released on ZMP label, right?

There are 10 provinces, about 72 ethnic groups in Zambia. In each province there are a few common social ceremonies, festivals, lifeline occupational activities, etc. which determine the type of music and musical instruments to employ. In turn, these give guidance to the genre that is relevant. Kalindula is just one of the many there are in Zambia and its common in some parts of Central and most of Luapula provinces in the country. However, Kalindula became more popular after ZMPL signed recording contracts with a few bands and solo artists who had the bias of this genre. These included 'The 5 Revoutions', 'Mulemena Boys', 'Sereje Kalindula Band', 'Lima Jazz Band', 'Spokes Chola', 'P.K. Chishala', 'Shalawambe' and many more.

What occupies your life lately?

There are a few things that have occupied my life lately and presently. I am a mentor, resource person and teacher in many projects and organizations which tap and promote music talents among the youth of Zambia. I am also on the Adjudicator’s Panel that rewards deserving musicians each year through the National Arts Council. I still write songs, mostly Christian, which I intend to record as soon as funds are available for booking a good studio and hire good Christian session musicians to help me record. Another goal is to raise sufficient funds to  build a school of music and to accommodate a world standard recording studio for the less privileged in my society. I have gotten into a gemstone mining venture because sponsors are not easy to come by. But I really believe God will make a way one day.

I sincerely thank you for taking your time. Would you like to share anything else? Perhaps a message to It's Psychedelic Baby readers?

Thanks for the wake up call and a nudge for me to start thinking about writing a book on my experiencers in the music industry – a good idea indeed. Thanks also for giving me a starting point. Maybe I should let you edit – what do you think?

Unfortunately, there are no footages of me performing with the 'WITCH BAND'. Even though I have one or two footages of me jamming with other bands the other guys. The guys who kept the footages at our Nationa Broad Caster (ZNBC) passed away many years ago and left no info as to where they kept them (since the footages were personal to holder stuff) – pity eh! No diary either on my part – but I can try to recall many things, events, incidences etc.

Thanks to Egon (Eothen, man you are great, and a God sent pal), Klemen and Kevin and all the readers of It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine. Thanks to all you guys. Please buy the 'WITCH' music and help me realize my wildest dreams, as well as helping the families of my departed band mates through royalties. I really feel resurrected musically and expectant of living my dream as a world renowned musician with a number of hits on various world hits lists, or at least with a song or two for a major film. You guys have rekindled my hopes. I pray that we can meet face to face at some of my promotional tours/performances.

God bless you all meanwhile!

 

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