Bvuma - Tolerance

When Bvuma was released in 2001, Zimbabwe was in the grips of one of the deepest crises it had experienced since independence. Robert Mugabe was clinging to power after a contentious election, had dispossessed the country’s white farmers and given much of the land to himself and his associates, and was allegedly having his political opponents violently attacked and imprisoned. Unemployment was skyrocketing, inflation made it impossible for people to buy basic goods, and an estimated one in four people were infected with HIV/AIDS. Until this point Oliver Mtukudzi had been wrongly judged as not having much of a political consciousness — even though many of his songs over the years did contain thinly veiled commentary and criticism — but on Bvuma he was as openly political as he ever would be, and the record was censored on state media. On “Wasakara” (which means “you are worn out”) he speaks to “old men”, telling them they should know when to step down and make way for new generations: a barely concealed criticism of Mugabe, who was almost 80 at the time and had been in power for decades. But across Bvuma Mtukudzi envelopes even his most severe condemnations in warmth and beauty, a style which led his fans to refer to him as “an iron fist in a velvet glove.”