The term 'World Music' has always annoyed me. It's a bit like the baseball World Series in reverse. The media moguls have divided music into what they define as real music (i.e. American and British), and what they dismiss as the primitive cacophonies of sound produced by the rest of the world. The latter can have an airing at WOMAD and Glastonbury, but is otherwise not taken seriously. Here in southern Africa things are seen rather differently.
All of this is by way of introduction to my going to one of the best concerts I have ever been to in my life. Maputo is not well served by cultural venues, and a lot of the events take place at the small Franco-Mozambique cultural centre. Now imagine that Bruce Springsteen or Santana decided to play at your local music pub. You get the picture, capacity 350 - 500, wooden benches, so close to the stage that audience members either get on stage to dance or - get this - are invited on stage to sing. So sexy you can smell it.
Well last Tuesday night Oliver Mtukudzi played here with his brilliant band The Black Spirits. It was just as I've described, with everyone bopping, singing along, and enjoying themselves in a way that they never would seated 500 metres from the video relay at Manchester Arena or Earls Court. Guttural and sensual - you'd better believe it! If anyone tells me that this is fringe music, to be filed in a back-wall rack at a Virgin Megastore, I'll tell them to listen with their stomach and their heart, not with their head.
Oh, I forgot to say - the ticket only cost 6.00 US dollars. A Coke cost that at the last Springsteen concert I went to.
Sid Verber
14th March 2004
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Franco-Mozambique Cultural Centre