A potentially dystrophic era: Analysing the lyrical sociology of selected sungura songs in Zimbabwe in the 1990s and beyond

Abstract

This article provides an exegesis of selected sungura songs sung in the 1990s and beyond by some of Zimbabwe's renowned musicians. Sungura is a Swahili word for rabbit. The word has become so naturalised in Shona to the extent that it now refers to a popular music genre sung mainly in indigenous languages. The beat is fast and furious and with a lot of emphasis on the footwork. The 1990s mark the incubation of new nation-state politics in which the subaltern overtly registers protestations against pauperising state policies. These protestations eventually explode in 1997 and intensify at the turn of the century, clearly marking ‘a paradigmatic rupture’ and solidifying the separation of the state from the citizens (Ndlovu-Gatsheni). As a result, sungura musicians operationalise art in expressing a national identity characterised by a brand of politics and economics triggering mass dystopia and dystrophy. Remarkably, these direct protests coincide with critical discourses coming from different literary artists and scholars, who also begin to articulate revisionist discourses that indict the nationalist ideologies. Among them are novels such as Pawns (1992), Echoing Silences (1997) and Mapenzi (1999). In the post-2000 era, there are numerous publications that begin to deconstruct the nationalist ideology with its penchant for heroism and unparalleled political and historical greatness. Among them are the Zimbabwe Women Writers authored Women of Resilience: The voices of women ex-combatants, Fay Chung's Re-living the Second Chimurenga: Memories from Zimbabwe's liberation struggle), Raftopoulos and Mlambo's Becoming Zimbabwe: A history from the pre-colonial period to 2008 and Edgar Tekere's A lifetime of struggle (2007).