a cappella imbube singing
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
The mesmerizing Zimbabwean quintet Black Umfolosi calls their music a “vocal newspaper,” delivering news that is both educational and entertaining through a cappella imbube singing and traditional Zulu dance. As co-founder Thomeki Dube has said, when people “are absorbed into a performance, then it stays for a long time in their memories.”
The story of Black Umfolosi begins two years after Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, when Thomeki Dube and Sotsha Moyo formed a choir with classmates at the all-boys’ George Silundika Secondary School. They named themselves after the Umfolozi Omnyama River, which ran through their homelands, and began to tour Zimbabwe’s boarding schools, drawing great enthusiasm from young people and elders alike.
A cappella imbube singing first appeared in southern Africa in the 1920s among rural migrant workers seeking solace and weekend entertainment in the hostels that housed mine and factory employees. Building on Zulu vocal traditions, imbube is characterized by a four-part harmony with a high lead and often doubled bass voices, and remains a popular pastime at community celebrations throughout Zimbabwe. Much like Ladysmith Black Mambazo in South Africa, Black Umfolosi took a dynamic new approach to the traditional imbube form, with eye-catching performance dress and beautiful choreography to delight and inspire the audience.
Black Umfolosi is also known for exceptional dancing, encompassing both traditional Zulu dance and the iconic South African gumboot style, believed to be one of the main antecedents of African American “stepping.” Forbidden to talk or sing by repressive bosses, Black miners developed a system of coded communication through body percussion and patterned stomping of their Wellington boots. Like imbube singing, gumboot dance emerged in the mid-20th century as a popular, anti-apartheid and anti-colonialist entertainment.
In the post-Independence environment, enthusiasm for Black Umfolosi’s dynamic presentation of these cultural traditions grew rapidly across Zimbabwe, and in 1990 their first album Unity gained them fans worldwide. Almost concurrently, the group invested in a teaching mission, incorporating the Black Umfolosi Performing Arts Project and its associated Arts Centre, devoting a majority of their profits to efforts to promote and preserve southern African culture, and train and mentor the next generation of artists.
As young men, Thomeki Dube and Sotsha Moyo looked to their elders for inspiration, and now the group they lead is, in its very structure, proof positive for the efficacy of intergenerational cultural transmission. In addition to the two co-founders, who have played together for 40 years, the current line-up includes 25-year member Austin Chisare. The two newest members, both graduates of Black Umfolosi’s training program, are Dube’s daughter Sandi Dube, and Moyo’s daughter Luzibo T. Moyo. Bringing women into what was heretofore an all-male ensemble is a change the band is embracing, part of their long support for women musicians. It also allows them to explore new depths in traditional song; as Dube reflects, the young women’s voices “bring in some beautiful texture to the music of Black Umfolosi.”