Is sungura music suitable for church?

Lovemore Chikova Christian Entertainment
I remember one of my relatives coming back from a church choir practice a few years ago very jubilant and apprehensive about the coming Sunday service.

Her source of joy was that visitors from the United States were coming to their church.

“We do not want to be found wanting,” my relative said.

“Our choir leader said we have to show the visitors that we are also good at the game and that we can sing songs from their country just like their own singers.”

This little conversation with my relative made me sit up and think.

The visitors were coming from the US and the local singers were preparing for them by practising Western songs in a bid to impress them!

This must rekindle the old debate that has dominated the local Christian community with regards to playing music in the church.

What genre of music is acceptable in the church? In short, can a church hold a successful praise and worship segment dominated by local genres or beats?

Is sungura music or any other local beat suitable for church?

What about rhumba – can a church’s praise and worship service be dominated by rhumba music and be deemed to have been successful?

This is a debate that has refused to go and still raises much interest among Christians.

There is really nothing wrong with local churches playing beats such as sungura, chimurenga, rhumba or any other associated with African music.

In fact, people should be drawn much more closer to God through such music because they are quite familiar with it.

But get me correct from the start, I am not saying it is bad to play Western music in the church. No, and far from it.

What I find mind-boggling is the total disregard of local genres and the mistaken belief that Western music alone can make people enjoy worshipping.

I have known a number of church choirs that are able to balance their praise and worship segments.

A certain segment is reserved for songs with the local beat, your hard core sungura, while the other segment is for laid back music and this is where some Western songs are played.

But there are some who do not want to have anything to do with the local beats and from the beginning to the end, songs performed are only those with the foreign beat.

If you go to the United States, for instance, there is not much difference in beats between gospel music songs and secular music.

They all use rock and roll, hip-hop, jazz, pop style, blues, country, house in both gospel and non-gospel compositions.

As a result, what is played in church is entirely what is played by secular musicians in terms of the beat and their music culture.

If that is the case in other countries, why should it be deemed abominable for a Zimbabwean church choir to play hard core sungura music during a church service?

You cannot go to the Democratic Republic of Congo and expect a praise and worship church team not playing rhumba or soukous right in the middle of a church service.

And Christians there do not mind because they know it is their music and they are proud to be associated with it.

But in Zimbabwe, I have seen some expressing reservations if sungura music or any other local beat is played in church.

If it is done perfectly and according to the sungura book, there are always some murmurings – “this has gone too far. Is this still about church”.

Zimbabweans are generally happy people and they usually express their happiness through music and dance.

Even in church, people should not be deprived of such an opportunity to truly express themselves in praise and worship. They can do that through music they are familiar with, music they know how to dance to and music they can identify with.

There are a number of Zimbabwean musicians whose works have suffered simply because they are not classified as gospel musicians owing to the heavy sungura beat they employ.

One such musician who comes to mind is Madzibaba Nicholas Zakaria. The man has made sure that all his songs talk about God and salvation. Yet his music has suffered rejection among the Christian community and even on radio and TV gospel music segments, no Zakaria music is played.

So, the dilemma my relative’s church choir is facing is how best it can impress the visitors from the US. But in such instances, the best is to ensure that the entire praise and worship segment for the service is made up of local songs with local beats. The visitors are familiar with songs from their country, they need to experience how Zimbabweans praise and worship God in their own language and music genres.