Mhishi, Lennon Chido (2017) Songs of migration : experiences of music, place making and identity negotiation amongst Zimbabweans in London. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/26684 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. Songs of Migration: Experiences of Music, Place Making and Identity Negotiation Amongst Zimbabweans in London Lennon Chido Mhishi Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD Anthropology and Sociology 2017 Department of Anthropology and Sociology SOAS, University of London 1 I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the SOAS, University of London concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Signed: ____________________________ Date: _________________ 2 Abstract This work constitutes an effort at foregrounding experiences of Zimbabwean migration that are not necessarily characterised by abjection. Against hegemonic narratives of crisis and instability and the experiences of dislocation that Zimbabweans have gone through, I convey the messiness and complexities of migrancy and inhabiting the elsewhere. I am also tracing some of the elements of a complicated historiography that Zimbabwean presence in Britain reveals, especially what I term an enduring colonial encounter. I explore experiences of Zimbabweans in London mediated by music, as it is experienced in time and place, yet also transcending them in the formations and reproductions of diasporic and transnational being and belonging. Recognising that Zimbabwean experiences in Britain are part of a lineage and genealogy of black, Afro-Caribbean and diasporic struggles, resistance, survival and conviviality, I explore London with other Zimbabweans to understand how music mediates sociality and becomes a way of resisting social death. This idea of social death and abjection, formulated specifically to engage blackness and the afterlife of slavery, I use here as a conceptualisation of the precarities and negative possibilities that come with the diasporic journey and attendant experiences. Inhabiting black bodies, and inserted into the dominant narratives of the migrant, how then do Zimbabweans in Britain negotiate being and belonging? It is here that I turn to music. Music stakes out a cultural space and can be an important part of everyday life, of ritual, myth and art, as avenues for the construction of diasporic being and belonging, the private and intimate, as well as the public and shared collective representations of being Zimbabwean in London. Music does not necessarily transcend the strains of social life, but as a set of practices tuned to and tuned by the flux and flow of human relationships, it is necessarily bound to them. 3 Acknowledgements To Tara, and Nunu, for breathing life into me, and into this project. I could not have found the strength to continue. My supervisor, Paru, for being always human and patient. They were not the easiest of times. There are many at SOAS who pushed and encouraged, and saw better days ahead. The Felix Trust, who made it possible for me to pursue the PhD. Baba, Amai, the Mhishi family, who continue to believe in me. Pier, Danai, Sabelo, Xolani, Natasha and many more in South Africa, for continuously demanding that I think, in your different ways. Wala and Kudaushe Matimba, without whom London and music would have been strange. Finally, to all the Zimbabweans who took their time to indulge me, this project would not exist without you. May your lives in the elsewhere continue to be frivolous, to resist abjection and may Zimbabwe be a better home. 4 Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction and Background ................................................................................................... 6 Chinoziva Ivhu Tracing Black Footsteps in A Concrete Jungle ............................................. 11 Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals? .................................................................................... 22 Writing Zimbabwe, Doing Ethnography in The Elsewhere .................................................. 25 Why Music? .............................................................................................................................. 36 History Will Break Your Heart; Not in a Thousand Years ..................................................... 49 Harare North: Singing the Blues in Zimbabwe and its Elsewheres ...................................... 61 London is the Place for Me ...................................................................................................... 71 No Irish, No Blacks: Early Experiences of Britain .................................................................. 81 Club 414 and Paul Lunga in Brixton ....................................................................................... 88 Performing the Decolonial: Music and Migration to Britain through Rhodesia into Zimbabwe ................................................................................................................................. 91 All that Jazz ............................................................................................................................... 96 Historical Traces, Transnational Connections and Diasporic Sensibilities: Mudhara Wala and Fred Zindi ........................................................................................................................ 108 Sanganai Bar: Conviviality and The Play at Belonging ........................................................ 132 Oliver Mtukudzi and Sulumani Chimbetu in London: Generations of Zimbabwean Music on Stage ....................................................................................................................................... 151 And the Beat Goes On ............................................................................................................ 152 On Thinking Place/Space, Home and Belonging ................................................................. 159 Gochi-Gochi and Zim-dancehall ............................................................................................ 169 Let These People Enjoy–They Work Very Hard .................................................................. 177 Zvesvondo: A Case of Religion and Musicking in the Zimbabwean Diaspora ................... 200 Zimbabwean and Catholic in Britain .................................................................................... 202 Our Lady of Good Counsel ..................................................................................................... 204 Songs of Salvation? Religion and its Discontents ................................................................ 206 The Genesis ............................................................................................................................ 209 Whiteness as Absence and Invisibility: Contesting the Idea of a Zimbabwean Identity .. 233 Tracing the Story of White Zimbabwean Music(ians): Some Insights from Fred Zindi ... 237 Kamikaze Test Pilots at the Gochi-Gochi .............................................................................. 239 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 243 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 247 5 Introduction and Background This work constitutes an effort at foregrounding experiences of Zimbabwean migration that are not necessarily characterised by abjection. Against the background of hegemonic narratives of crisis and instability and the experiences of dislocation that Zimbabweans have gone through, I am interested in conveying the messiness and complexities of migrancy encapsulated as the elsewhere. Similarly, I am also tracing some of the elements of a complicated historiography of Zimbabwe that Zimbabwean presence in Britain reveals, especially in the sense of what I term an enduring colonial encounter and coloniality. The overarching question I sought to answer is: how does music mediate belonging and identity amongst Zimbabweans in London? Related to this were also questions about the constitution of Zimbabwean subjectivities and what it means to write