From the motherland of music

Music from Africa also feeds me, soothes me, makes me feel like I am at "home".

In my car I have been playing the same CD over and over again for the last few weeks since I got it--Thomas Mapfumo's Rise Up. According to the Wikipedia entry on Thomas Mapfumo he is known as the Lion of Zimbabwe and has wielded immense political influence during the fight for independence and now in the fight against the newest "oppressive regime". Thomas Mapfumo's chimurenga (struggle) music is political but it is still so soothing to me. I realize that I must have been immersed in it all the years I was growing up. Thomas Mapfumo is a force for the celebration and development of traditional African culture and identity. He sings in his native Shona and has taken the traditional Zimbabwean instrument, the mbira, "finger piano" which is so gentle and simple and has electrified it like an electronic guitar! Please listen on his MySpace page and you will hear the sounds of Zimbabwe.

I also just bought a couple of songs off of Lucky Dube's last album before his tragic death. It is entitled, Respect. Lucky Dube was killed in a carjacking just a couple of months ago. He is one of the most well-known South African reggae artists. He is another example of a great man with an extraordinarily magnanimous heart that has learned to forgive and who preaches love and forgiveness to all through his music. The expansiveness of the African heart for forgiveness and joy and love is something so enormously astonishing. Jonathan Jansen spoke of this to his audience of largely African American students--the capacity for Africans to forgive and he has even taken it upon himself to encourage African Americans to leave behind their anger and even to scold them ever so gently. He even recounts a story of scolding Gloria Ladson Billings on his visit to the University of Wisconsin!! Extraordinary.

Here are lyrics to one of Lucky Dube's most popular songs ever "Together as One" [you really have to hear it sung though with all the richness of the reggae twang]

In my whole life,
My whole life
I've got a dream (x2)

...
Chorus: (x3)
Hey you rasta man
Hey European, Indian man
We've got to come together as one

Not forgetting the Japanese

The cats and the dogs Have forgiven each other
What is wrong with us (x2)

All those years Fighting each other But no solution (x2)
Chorus: (x2)


And the lyrics to Respect

When you flash that badge
You want everyone to shiver
When you flash that badge
You want everyone to worship you
I got no time to worship human kind
I only worship the All Mighty
Through his prophets
I have learned
To give respect to everything he created

I give love to those who gimme love
Love those who gimme war
I love those who hate me
I bless even those who curse me yeah x 2

Chorus Gimme gimme respect

Show me show me respect.

You could be the president

You could be his deputy

You don't even have to know

My political affiliation

You don't even have to know

My religious affiliation

Respect me, for who I am

And not what I am

Nobody even cares about your dollars

Nobody even cares about your bling bling

Give love to those who give you love

Love to those who hate you

Bless even those who curse you, yeah x 2

Chorus

Gimme respect

Show me show me respect