What Makes Bulawayo The Country’s Melting Pot Of Arts?

By Nomvuyo Mdluli and Khanyile Mlotshwa

ROBERT Mso Ndlovu (51) has been in music for 40 years today, which is twice the age of most of the young people monopolizing the airwaves on Power FM. It is however refreshing that he still holds the faith of a teenage prodigy as he is stopping at nothing to experiment with his sound. He has become the master of live music.

Ndlovu’s story underlies the dominance and power of Bulawayo in arts and culture in the country. In the 1950s, Bulawayo was the industrial hub of Zimbabwe, but with time lost that to Harare. The post independence Zimbabwe era has seen the city establish itself as a dominating force in the arts and cultural sector.

To illustrate the power of Bulawayo in the arts and culture field, almost 70% of  artist, practising their trade internationally are from Bulawayo. Zimbabwe sole poet of consequence, Albert Nyathi, Zimbabwe’s most gifted lead guitarist, Andy Brown, Busi Ncube, Dorothy Masuka, Jerry Mhlanga of Amatayitayi, The Cool Crooners, Paul Lunga,Black Umfolosi, Oscar Mdlongwa,Insingizi Emnyama, Kelvin Matonto Gudu,Majayivana, Tymon Mabaleka former Highlanders iBosso iBosso striker now Zimbabwe’s foremost music producer and many others started their  careers in Bulawayo. Dance groups Amavithikazi, Iyasa, Siyaya,Sunduza,Black Spear and many others have their roots in Bulawayo. Zimbabwe’s sole commonwealth literature prizewinner Yvonne Vera was born and grew up in Bulawayo. Though she nurtured her writing career at York University in Canada, she never lost the rhythms of her Bulawayo roots. Artists, Voti Thebe, Danisile Ncube and Adam Madebe have underlied the city’s dominance in visual arts across the world.

Most people remember Ndlovu for his work with his group, Mazi A Moyo. However that is a comeback effort after a 32 years hiatus. Like Bulawayo’s dominance he has always been there. His story gives one reason for the dominance.    

He started his music career in 1965 as a young man at Indlovu Youth Centre in Tshabalala, Bulawayo.

“Things were happening in Bulawayo at that time as the Bulawayo City Council had a strong youth policy with its youth centres,” he said.

Dorothy Masuka and The Cool Crooners were at the height of their talent, parallel to Hugh Masekela and Mirriam Makeba down South Africa. Ndlovu and his age mates were looking up. They were seeing all these stars around them and they wanted to be like them.    

“I was an unemployed youth at that time. We used to have facilities such as Township Square Cultural Centre but these were in youth centres and as part of the youth policy of that time you could get groups coming from as far as Mpopoma and Njube to play at the centre (Indlovu Youth centre),” said Ndlovu.

Amakhosi Theatre, which started off as a karate entity, was nurtured in youth centres(Mthwakazi Youth Center and Tshaka Youth Center before it was taken to the Township Square Cultural Centre (TSCC). In 1981, the founding children’s karate group found support from the Bulawayo City Council Youth Services department in Nguboyenja led by the then Highlanders Bosso Tshilamoya striker Josiah Nxumalo and was allocated Mthwakazi Youth Centre in the township of Nguboyenja and it grew to include a lot of kids from Makokoba, Mzilikazi, Thorngroove and Nguboyenja.

“In this group Mhlanga started to nurture the development of Amakhosi Theatre as the group became popular and grew to 60 kids in membership,” said Mhlanga.

The youth services department policy, which also gave birth to theatre in the city and the dominance of Bulawayo in the art form, gave Bulawayo a head start in terms of arts and culture. Every year the Youth Arena hosted a multi-arts festival for Bulawayo kids.(The current government and politics of self gain currently practiced in Zimbabwe have killed all this)  

Ndlovu said there were over 26 groups at the centre at that time.(By 1958 Bulawayo’s MacDonald Community Hall in Mzilikazi hosted an average of 3 culture shows a day and was home to the country’s best Brass Band in Southern Africa.)

“We were only boys which means there were no girls in our group. However there were some groups made up of girls only. Some were even mixtures,” he said.    

The establishment of Amakhosi has been a huge catalyst in catapulting Bulawayo to the forefront of Zimbabwe’s artistic and cultural endevours. The birth of Amakhosi, not only took a lot of young people into arts, who today have grown up to be old people; but it also inspired the rise of a lot of drama groups among them globetrotters Siyaya Arts, by then known as Nostalgic Actors and singers Association (NASA). This group was founded by the late Mike Sobinko and is currently under the management of Simon Mambazo. 

Amakhosi’s 1980s policy of touring Cont Mhlanga’s plays in every secondary school in Matebeleland once each term instituted the new performance culture in the region. The theater culture took hold at schools as these drama groups toured schools and most school children started experimenting with the art form. This is the influence that soon spread to give Bulawayo a head start over other regions in theatre and dance groups.

Mhlanga remembers that at that time, theatre was mostly a white preserve and when they started out they had nowhere to look for influence, though there was MAWA, which was mostly a black elitist arts group led by the late Mthandazo Ndema Ngwenya (one of Mhlanga’s 4 early mentors) and multi-talented Felix Moyo.  

In a recent arts symposium at the National Art Gallery in Bulawayo, Phathisa Nyathi the Public relations manager at the Bulawayo City Council noted that the city is the arts capital of the country. Besides these reasons there are other factors that have given Bulawayo dominance in arts. One of the factors is that almost all the cultures and languages in the country are found in Matabeleland. This region has a lion’s share of cultures in the country. There is Nguni, Kalanga, Xhosa,Sotho, Venda, Nambya, Tonga and even Shona that over many years have blended into Ndebele culture.The Ndebele have an interesting song that says:

“Kudala kwakunganje,umhlaba uyaphenduka,

Kwakubusa uMambo loMzilikazi”

Literary translated it means that in the olden days it wasn’t like the present, the world changes, Mambo and Mzilikazi were the rulers then. This song underlies the respect that these two cultures have had for each other but it also underlies the point that Matabeleland is the home to a lot of cultures. Khami Ruins stand in the middle of the region as a testimony of that.

This point intertwines with the fact that Matabeleland has had an interesting and varied history, which gives it a head start in terms of arts. The history of the Ndebele people is very long and rich. Historian Phathisa Nyathi notes that this is one of the reasons why Bulawayo is called the City of Kings.

The Matabeleland region is next to South Africa, a country where arts and artistic creation is advanced. Probably the attempt to keep up with South Africa is another reason why the region has always stretched the imagination of the country in terms of artistic creation. In a globalizing world, what armchair critics call cultural imperialism, is a learning curve and therefore a positive influence for the practicing artists, who in the modern world is at the forefront of shaping culture.

‘This position Bulawayo claims even under very difficult political and tribal conditions where some key people in the current government master mind a SHONALISATION NATIONAL PROGRAM under the guise of promoting national unity, whose objective is to eliminate all minority cultures, languages, customs and traditions in the country with particular emphasis on those minority cultures that make the Ndebele culture. The results and the success of this program are there for all to see and experience in Zimbabwe today’ said Cont Mhlanga

MASIYEPHAMBILI is Bulawayo’s slogan or sign off line, BUT WHICH WAY FORWAD IT DOES NOT SAY?