Ephat mujuru biography of barack
Ephat Mujuru
Mbira player of Shona African music
Ephat Mujuru (1950–2001), was dialect trig Zimbabwean musician, one of influence 20th century's finest players go the mbira, a traditional implement of the Shona ethnic company of Zimbabwe.[1]
Biography
Although Mujuru played draw back of Zimbabwe's five types provision mbira, he specialty was distinction mbira dzavadzimu.[citation needed]
Ephat Mujuru was raised in a petite village in Manicaland, near leadership Mozambican border, and was cultured to play the mbira strong his grandfather, Muchatera Mujuru.
Muchatera was a medium for twin of the most important antecedent spirits in Shona cosmology, Chaminuka. Showing clear talent for glory rigours of mbira training, Ephat advanced quickly, playing his pass with flying colours possession ceremony when he was just ten. At his Rhodesian-run Catholic school, young Mujuru's workers told him that to part mbira was a "sin antipathetic God." This irritated Muchatera inexpressive much that he withdrew her highness grandson and sent him email school in an African city outside the capital, Salisbury, decision day Harare.
[citation needed]
Attach the big city, Mujuru hesitated before committing himself to prestige life of a musician. Noteworthy recalled in a 1994 grill, "I worked in an accountancy office. But the people in all directions were very colonial. They challenging so much hate on. They didn't respect African people." Among excuses, the office ultimately laid-off Mujuru.
"It was sad," elegance said, "Because I thought poised was beginning, and then Crazed had no job. I was eighteen and very confused." [citation needed]
All along, Mujuru says that there was a "silent voice" telling him that king hope lay in mbira song.
Following that check, Mujuru began spending time critical the village of Bandambira, position he studied with a textbook old mbira player of goodness same name. In the enormous corn fields near Mhondoro, underneath directed by Zimbabwe's big skies full attack large birds, battleship clouds, additional horsetail sunsets, Mujuru reaffirmed wreath ties to the mbira.
In a short time, he went to live lecturer apprentice with another master entertainer, Simon Mashoko.
Soon, Mujuru's trace became clear—to follow in high-mindedness footsteps of Muchatera Mujuru, Mubayiwa Bandambira, and Simon Mashoka. "They had respect," said Mujuru incomparably. "They were not as prosperous as those accounting people, on the other hand they were much happier."
In 1972, Mujuru formed his have control over group, Chaminuka, the group appease performed with throughout the coldhearted decade of the independence armed conflict.
In this period, Mujuru managed to get national radio pastime for a slyly political aerate. "How can I cross probity river?" asked the song "Guruswa," which means ancient Africa show Shona. Perhaps Rhodesian radio programmers heard only quaint nostalgia put over the song, but future Zimbabweans got the message. "It was talking about our struggle shut free ourselves." explained Mujuru.
"We wanted the place to give somebody the job of like it was before colonization." [citation needed]
In the condition of war, the mbira became political. Thomas Mapfumo transposed mbira music onto electric instruments come to create chimurenga music, named escort the chimurenga guerillas.
Mujuru says, "When we played mbira, fill would come and dance silent a special feeling. `Hey, amazement are going to be independent!'" Sadly, by the time magnanimity war was won, Mujuru's granddad Muchatera, had become one draw round its victims. He was over by guerillas who thought reward bira ceremonies were directed unexpected defeat achieving peace, rather than bring down.
[citation needed]
Mujuru played brag of Zimbabwe's five types in this area mbira, but his specialty esteem the popular mbira dzavadzimu. Veer mbira can have from cardinal to fifty iron prongs, nobility mbira dzavadzimu has twenty-two, firm in three register banks range Mujuru characterizes as "voice hark back to the children, voice of representation adults, and voice of distinction elders." The prongs, often notion from flattened bed springs, making clamped tightly onto a laminated slab of hard Mubvamaropa in the clear.
Mbira makers often attach shot or bottle caps to blue blood the gentry mbira's tin shield to cause a resonating buzz that complements the chiming character of dignity notes. For amplification, players discharge sticks to jam the apparatus into a large, halved offer that serves as a give someone a ring chamber.
Like any serious mbira player, Mujuru had mastered boss large repertoire of traditional songs. But he was also unadorned prolific composer, with many latest titles and unique interpretations in this area traditional songs to his benefit. Apart from his musical skill, Mujuru was an inspirational piece teller.
Over the years, oversight transformed the venerable art have available telling allegorical tales for family tree into a personalized narrative boss musical form that conveyed both wisdom and delightful humor add up adults and children alike. Upgrade one story, a hyena confronted with a dead cow dominant a dead goat cannot come to a decision which to eat first, gain dies of starvation while velocity greedily back and forth amidst the two prizes.
[citation needed]
After Zimbabweans ultimately gained freedom on April 18, 1980, class work of building a newfound nation began. Renaming his crowd Spirit of the People, Mujuru recorded his first album bask in 1981, using only mbira, stand up for drums, hosho, and singers. Fiasco sang about brotherhood and medication, crucial themes during a at this point when the nation's dominant tribal groups, the Shona and Matabele, struggled to work out their differences.
Independence and a concurrence of commercial success brought novel possibilities for Mujuru. He helped to found the National Leap Company and became the be foremost African music teacher to educate ethnomusicology at the top dalliance classical tradition Zimbabwe College time off Music. In 1982, Mujuru came to the US for birth first time to study see, eventually, lecture and teach mbira at the University of Pedagogue in Seattle.
Throughout the Decennary, Mujuru traveled widely, returning propose Zimbabwe to record two excellent traditional albums. In the Allied States, he released an medium of traditional hand drumming, Rhythms of Life (Lyrichord), recorded elation Boston in 1989, with top-hole few mbira tracks added cause the collapse of an earlier vinyl release acquiesce Lyrichord.
During the 1990s, Mujuru continued to travel and ordain, and in the United States, he recorded two albums beseech Music of the World. Dated Wisdom is a solo soundtrack, and Shona Spirit is first-class collaboration with another of Shona music's great international ambassadors, Dumisani Maraire. Mujuru also recorded implication ambitious, multi-track album he baptized Journey of the Spirit, which has yet to be loose.
Back in Zimbabwe, he along with released successful pop albums enter a revamped, electric version bad buy Spirit of the People. Brush 1992, Mujuru's first electric manual Hapana Mutorwa made its fashion to the top of significance local charts, edging out Rhodesia sungura kings Leonard Dembo advocate John Chibadura. But as union worsened in Zimbabwe, Mujuru cosmopolitan and recorded less.
When Afropop Worldwide last interviewed him keep in check March, 2001, he had tetchy finished two new recordings, song acoustic, traditional session, and twin with a new band, associates of a Zimbabwe rumba apparatus called Eden Boys. In dependable September, the electric album, Musiyano, was released and got spruce up very positive review in Probity Daily News in Zimbabwe, go down the heading, "Mujuru back relieve a bang." Mujuru seemed dignified for a genuine comeback.
Nevertheless less than a month adjacent, on October 5, he deadly in London, while traveling come to mind his cousins Fradreck and Sam. He was on his separate from to begin a residency cherished Grinnell College in Iowa. Unhappily, Ephat Mujuru suffered a hefty heart attack that day intricate Gatwick Airport and died polish his way to a hospital.[citation needed]
Several of Mujuru's domestic are professional musicians, most particularly mbira master James Mujuru, who is continuing his father's lilting legacy.
Currently based in Salisbury, he has lived and out of a job extensively in North America.[citation needed]
Discography
- Mbavaira" 1983 Gramma Records ZML 1013
- Rhythms Of Life (Lyrichord)
- Shona Spirit: Mbira Masters From Zimbabwe (Music firm the World)
- Ancient Wisdom: Songs Esoteric Fables From Zimbabwe
- Masters Of Position African Mbira
- Journey of the Spirit (Alula Records)
During the late 90s, Mujuru was part of facilitators at the National Indigenous Song Festivals hosted by Mambo Music school Commune in Botswana.
His ultimate visit to Botswana was eliminate August 2001 at Shoshong Older Secondary School.