Stella Chiweshe (also Stella Rambisai Chiweshe, Stella Rambisai Chiweshe Nekati, or Stella Nekati Chiweshe, b. Mujumi Village, Mhondoro, Zimbabwe, November 8, 1946) is a Zimbabwean musician. She is internationally known for her singing and playing of the mbira dzavadzimu, a traditional instrument of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. She is one of the few female players of the instrument, which she learned to play in the mid-1960s when even fewer females played the instrument. In 1989, she starred in I Am the Future, a Godwin Mawuru film about a young woman who travels to the big city to escape Zimbabwe's independence war in the rural areas. November 8 is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 53 days remaining. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Mbira Dzavadzimu in deze (top), Mbira Nyunga Nyunga (bottom), Hosho (bottom left). ... Shona (IPA: ) is the name collectively given to several groups of people in Zimbabwe and western Mozambique. ...
Mbira Dzavadzimu in deze (top), Mbira Nyunga Nyunga (bottom), Hosho (bottom left). ... Zimbabwean music includes folk and pop styles, much of it based on the well-known instrument the mbira. ...
Stella Rambisai Chiweshe is Zimbabwe's Queen of Mbira and is the great grand daughter of Munaka, the resistance fighter who was hanged by the British during their occupation of Zimbabwe.
Stella likens the 23 keys of her mbira to 23 voices.
Stella was the first recording artist of the Piranha label (www.piranha.de) in 1987.
A very spiritual album with references to spirits, a policeman possessed by the sounds of the m'bira, and a singing fish, it also includes a song she dreamed her grandmother was singing to her.
The mbira or thumb piano, small and unassuming instrument from which Ms Chiweshe weaves her sonic fabric, is in Zimbabwe more than an instrument: it is the means through which communication with the spirit world is made possible.
(Chiweshe made the first recording on the German label, which is now celebrating its 100th release by returning to where it started.) It's interesting to hear how much this archival material is oriented toward danceable rhythms, song form and the electric mbira sound.
Feeds |
Contact