WOMAD

Stella Chiweshe

From Zimbabwe

“When I first listened to the mbira sound, I wanted to hear more and more. I could not stop it. I was sick until I learned to play.” Thus speaks Stella Chiweshe, the most prominent guardian of the mbira, the Zimbabwean thumb piano. It’s an instrument that hasn’t had a particular easy time of it over the last few decades. Not only has it been undermined by the dominance of electric guitars in Zimbabwean music, it was also an instrument mistrusted by the then-Rhodesian government who banned it believing it possessed sinister, magical powers. They were sort of right, of course. The mbira does indeed hypnotise and beguile, especially in the hands of Stella whose fingers flit over the keys with the blurring speed of a hummingbird’s wings. But the woman known back home as Her Majesty doesn’t regard the mbira as historical artefact – her sound is supremely danceable and very contemporary, bringing the instrument’s distinct undulating screaming into the 21st century.Catch this if you like… Thomas Mapfumo or Oliver Mutukudzi