Online Reporter
Itayi Musengeyi, Day Editor
DENDERA music maestro Simon Chimbetu, who passed away on August 14, 2005, was a multifaceted figure.
His fans affectionately referred to him as the Master of Song, while others hailed him as a lyrical genius or wordsmith, owing to his remarkable talent in composing and arranging timeless hits.
Chimbetu, fondly nicknamed Chopper by his legion of fans and admirers, was a polyglot who composed and sang melodiously in Shona, Ndebele (notably in Khami Road, one of several tracks reflecting his tribulations during imprisonment at Khami Prison in Bulawayo for car theft), Chewa, Swahili, and English.
Chopper was a fashion connoisseur and trendsetter, always impeccably dressed both on and off stage. His charismatic stage presence and captivating dance moves during live performances often influenced his band members.
“The smart guy with bashful eyes, a soulful voice, a boyish haircut and an unshakable Pan-African vision will be sorely missed by the rest of us!” wrote award-winning novelist and University of Zimbabwe academic Memory Chirere in a tribute published by The Southern Times in 2005.
Writing on www.intimatemomentswithzimmusicians.blogspot.com in 2011, veteran journalist Wonder Guchu described Chimbetu as “a closed box-intrigue.”
“Simon Chimbetu was an intrigue. Those who knew him well speak of a man who was like a picture album. There were aspects of his life he never openly discussed. Whatever secrets he held, they went with him to the grave. He never hid, however, that he was a staunch Zanu-PF supporter, even claiming to have trained as a guerrilla in Tanzania.
“It was for this reason that he included a song about the liberation war on every album. And most, if not all, of those songs remain iconic today. Who can forget Ndarangarira Gamba or Pane Asipo?” wrote Guchu.
In his own words, Chopper told another veteran Zimbabwean journalist, Mduduzi Mathuthu, during an interview in England — where he performed numerous times:
“I fought in the liberation war and still think of my comrades who died in my arms.
They didn’t fight for their families alone; they fought so that Zimbabweans could reclaim what had been taken from them by the whites.
I look at opposition parties across Africa, just as I look at all new things that emerge, and I realise they have no base.
I am a revolutionary, and what I see in most of our opposition parties is a group of people without foundation — they cannot think independently.”
Musically, Chopper was a guitarist, vocalist, composer and dancer — but above all, he was a revolutionary, as he affirmed in his interview with Mathuthu.
He proudly expressed his patriotism, love for his motherland Zimbabwe, and for the African continent through his masterfully composed songs. Notable examples include Zimbabwe, Hatikanganwe, Pane Asipo, Ndarangarira Gamba, Africa Inaliya, One Way, and Maneno Yawongo (sung in Swahili and English, lamenting the lies told about Africa by its detractors).
His repertoire of Pan-African and revolutionary songs revealed Chimbetu’s other dimensions — as a nationalist and intellectual. Chirere aptly captured this when he argued that the media overlooked these traits of the dendera icon:
“One does not see some fundamental questions asked (and answered) every time the media reflect on music and ideology in Zimbabwe.
Can any music (especially the lyrics) ever be neutral? Is music (or any art for that matter) divorced from the major and minor struggles in any society? Is the musician not entitled to a side, a view? If he does, must it not come out in his music?
While singing is a business, how much of that singing should target money and money alone?”
In his final years, Chimbetu was vilified for songs such as Hoko, which supported the land reform programme, and Kure Kachana (commonly referred to as KuState House Kure), a critique of the opposition.
Yet, upon his death, the outpouring of grief that followed suggested a nation deeply in love with its musical hero, despite the controversies surrounding some of his compositions.
Zimbabweans thronged a city funeral parlour in Harare to witness his funeral procession, forming a long convoy to his home in Mabelreign in honour of their beloved icon.
“Memories of cars of different makes and sizes that snaked through roads adjacent to his house in Mabelreign as people came to honour the fallen music and provincial hero are still vivid,” The Herald recalled in 2016.
Chirere asserts that Chopper endured the vilification in the true spirit of an unwavering revolutionary.
“His last album Ten Million Pounds: Reward reminds one of the singer’s unique music and his complex circumstances as both musician and nationalist. For the four years preceding his death, Chimbetu had been under intense scrutiny.
Sadly, his situation did not receive adequate analysis and understanding, either in Zimbabwe or abroad.
There were open hate messages, boycotts of his shows, and even demonisation by some sections of the local media. But the man soldiered on.”
As a contemporary critic, Chopper never hesitated to address present-day challenges in his music. This aspect of his artistry, Chirere notes, was often overlooked — because while he was a patriot, he was not blind to the hardships of life.
“In fact, Chimbetu makes very subtle and intelligent criticisms of the establishment in many of his songs. In an older track titled Vana Vaye (from the Survival album), the singer pleads with the leader not to forget the prices of bread and mealie-meal ‘zvevana vangu’ (for my children).”
Chopper was not only a musical hero but a revolutionary, and was fittingly laid to rest at the Mashonaland West Provincial Heroes Acre — the site of the historic Chinhoyi Battle, which marked the beginning of the Second Chimurenga.
Two decades on, the Dendera beat lives on — and the consciousness endures.
