Ndipeiwo Zano

By the time Oliver Mtukudzi recorded his first album with his band The Black Spirits in 1978 he was already a rising star in Zimbabwe, having released the hit “Dzandimomotera” with the Wagon Wheels, a band which included Chimurenga music creator Thomas Mapfumo. Ndipeiwo Zano was produced by South African musician and producer West Nkosi (an original member of Makgona Tsohle Band which backed Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens), who infused the tracks with the melodies and rhythms of mbaqanga, the rural Zulu music that had emerged in South Africa in the 1960s. The album would be the first taste of Mtukudzi’s distinctive “Tuku Music,” the radiant and serene blend of jit (the fast, percussive dance music of Zimbabwe), South Africa’s mbaqanga, and the gentle mbira rhythms of Zimbabwe’s Shona people.