This thesis examines Shona commodified songs in order to develop a set of criteria for critically determining whether a Zimbabwean popular song has appropriated a Shona traditional song and whether this enables the song to be categorised as “commodified Shona traditional music”. The study identifies and analyses Zimbabwean popular songs by selected musicians. It identifies strategies and patterns adopted by the musicians to reconstruct Shona traditional sources. The study also questions why the musicians draw from the indigenous sources in certain ways and how the commodified songs are meaningful to them and Shona community members in general. The analysis shows that there are certain cultural values associated with each of the distinct Shona musical genres namely mbira, ngoma and jiti. These determine how the songs are adapted. Mbira music is believed to be the product of ancestors and therefore all the popular songs that reproduce mbira traditional sources must retain “standard basic” structural elements. The melorhythmic patterns associated with ngoma traditional sources are usually maintained in popular music. While text constantly changes, traditional themes are usually continued. However, the perception and understanding of cultural values usually differ from one popular musician to another depending on varying personal backgrounds and compositional purposes. Generally, there are four strategies employed in the adaptation of Shona traditional music. These are imitation, sampling, combining two or more distinct indigenous styles and abstract adaptation. The inclusion and exclusion of Shona indigenous elements in popular music performance play an important role in the reconstruction and negotiation of cultural heritage and identity for contemporary musicians and audiences.

In her study of the post-independence Zimbabwean music industry, Angela Impey notes that women now constitute a hidden yet sizeable force in the music industry (1992:17). The current study examines the socio-political, cultural and economic factors that have led to the significant increase in the number of female musicians in the post-independence Zimbabwean popular music industry. The study also seeks to bring to the fore the longstanding issue of the dynamics in the relationship between male and female musicians in the industry. Applying a feminist approach to the study of popular music, the current study seeks to shift the focus of research from the presentation of women as victims in the industry to that of celebrating the female successes in the popular music industry. Through a case study approach the study sets out to describe and analyse the careers of Sandra Ndebele and Edith Weutonga who have become successful in the once male dominated industry.

The study interrogates the context reflectivity of postcolonial Shona popular music in Zimbabwe. It also explores the extent to which the legal environment in which the same music is produced, disseminated and consumed affects expressivity and artistic precision. The study is inspired by the New Historicism theory which assumes that every work of art is a product of the historical moment that created it and can be identified with the cultural and political movements of the time. The same is believed of popular music. The study is also beholden to the Marxist literary tradition for its assessment of the discourse of politics and socio-economic issues in popular music. For all the analysis, an Afrocentric eye view informs the thesis. Being qualitative in perspective, the research mainly uses the hermeneutic research design as an operational framework for the interpretation of lyrical data. Hermeneutics, as a method of textual analysis, emphasizes the socio-cultural and historic influences on qualitative interpretation. Postcolonial Shona popular music is purposively sampled and critically studied using the hermeneutic method to tease out latent social and political nuances in lyrical data. Interviews are roped in as alternative opinions to validate hermeneutic data. The research observes that the legislative environment in which Zimbabwean popular music is composed is, on paper, very conducive for the art but in practice severely restrictive. The constitution allows the artiste sufficient space to sing any subject but confessions by some critics alert on the incidences of some censored products. Even against that backdrop artistes have gone on to compose politically suggestive music. However, from the first decade of independence, the tendency for the artiste has been to flow with the meta-narrative or hegemonic discourses of the state, while in the later decades the artiste sounds critical of the nationalist government. Realising the power of music to articulate serious national issues; among other prescriptions, the study recommends that government creates a flexible and democratic legislation that allows for unbounded creativity and consumption of artistic products. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

A content analysis of Leonard Karikoga Zhakata’s sungura music unpacks shared experiences of Zimbabweans during a decade of crises.Various musicians composed music pregnant with cultural meaning. These genres defied the ruling Zanu PF party‘s propaganda. The ZANU P.F. flagged enemy was imperialist history, whose characteristic was bankrupt in civil justice. Common sense ‘umunthu’ (‘Humaness)’ philosophy could have witnessed the ruling party stand by the people at the height of economic decline. This dissertation argued that the sungura genre became a formidable force. The music had dramatic effect of unifying citizens of different distinct cultural traditions, often which set Shona, Manyika, Korekore, Changana and Ndebele apart. ‘Mugove’ ‘(Reward) and ‘Hupenyu mutoro’ (Life is a burden) lyrics manifested thought processes, ideas and actions which projected popular unity against ruling elite hegemony. Zimbabweans’ collective cultural awareness that could have defined social experiences indirectly or directly motivated formations of oppositional political establishments. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was the brainchild of political disillusionment chorused in “Hupenyu Mutoro’ (Life is a burden) and ‘Mugove’ (Reward) lyrics. The musical texts unravelled the hidden sin of gross graft by the powerful built on self aggrandisement at the expense of the vulnerable subalterns. The sungura genre manifested an art of aggressive entertainment and enjoyment yet passively and remotely awakening citizens to the obtaining dire economic hardships. The genre’s scholarly fabric and dynamics, cut deep into life sensibilities as exemplified by ‘Hupenyu Mutoro’. The deplorable life style experienced by the suffering majority epitomised by political repression and economic meltdown became catalyst for political participation and opportunities for plural voices.This dissertation argues that academic curricula harnesses the influential sungura genre in teaching a people’s story. Sungura music authenticates national historical versions that comfortably orbits around official realities of civil governance processes, what Fanon refers to as ‘a zone of occult instability (Fanon, 1963 p. 253). Unemployment, hyper-inflation, cholera out breaks, empty shelves in shops compounded with a ravaging parallel market prices became food for thought. Disllusionment nagged Zimbabweans below and above the poverty datum peg vis a viz the material power index of a handful citizens in the ruling party. Hence Zhakata’s ‘Hupenyu mutoro’ (Life is a burden) and ‘Mugove’ (Reward) became a classical and contested terrain that motivated the teaching and learning of Zimbabwean history. / Communication / M.A. (Communication)

This qualitative study analyses gendered metaphors in selected Zimbabwean Shona songs. The study explores how musicians deploy gendered metaphors to propagate, reinforce or challenge gender views and positions held in the Zimbabwean contemporary society. The corpus of data comprised Shona popular songs released between 1988 and 2018 and down loaded from You-tube. The songs were transcribed, translated into English and metaphors identified and interpreted using a combination of the Pragglejaz Group (2007), Steen (2007) and Charteris-Black (2004) metaphor identification methods. Charteris-Black’s (2004) Critical Metaphor Analysis was adopted as the key theory and method of analysis. The analysis drew support from Lazar's (2007) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, Foucault (1980) and Butler's (1990) ideas on discourse and gender. The findings reveal that Zimbabwean musicians singing in Shona discursively use gendered metaphors to construct, reinforce or challenge views and positions on gender. While the metaphors describe and evaluate men and women positively and negatively for ideological purposes, the metaphors largely marginalise women more than men. The metaphors therefore, have the effect of legitimising and naturalising male dominance in the Zimbabwean society. However, the same musicians occasionally utilise metaphor discoursal power to resist, challenge and control the dominance. Metaphors become a conduit through which topical contemporary gender issues, norms and values, gender views and positions are highlighted and debated. Two contesting ideologies were noted: one ideology emphasised that women are inferior to men and men should tolerate them for their weaknesses and the second projected women as men’s equals and that men and women roles complement each other. It is the conclusion of this study that gendered metaphors in Shona song lyrics allow musicians to discursively and for ideological purposes reinforce, contest and negotiate various gender perspectives making metaphors a powerful tool for shaping views on gender. Therefore the research, recommends that stakeholders recognise and promote the critical role played by language on inculcating gender perceptions in such domains as music, to come up with language programmes that promote gender parity and equality in society. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / Ph. D. (Languages, Linguistics and Literature)