On Zamrock: a psych-rock explosion in 70s Zambia
A week ago, gripped by your usual seasonal feelings of inadequacy, I turned for comfort to a playlist of Zamrock. I have since fallen in love with Lazy Bones, the magnum opus of the genre’s archetypes, WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc), Africa by Amanaz (Ask Me About Nice Artistes In Zambia — you’ve got to have a stomach for anagrams if you’re getting into this stuff), and other albums from the scene in general.
The articles and documentaries about Zamrock in which I’ve immersed myself explain its mysterious rise and fall with some version of this (presumably heavily simplified) retelling of Zambia’s history:
independence from Britain
regional economic power due to copper resources
policies focused on empowerment of the local populace by the liberal President Kenneth Kaunda, a hero of the liberation movement
a federal mandate that 90% of music on the radio be Zambian
*explosion of Zamrock*
falling copper prices
national debt
*end of explosion of Zamrock*
growing illiberalism of the government
AIDS crisis
*unfortunate demise of several of the genre’s stalwarts*
rebuilding of the nation’s economy through ambitious government investment with ample foreign (*cough* Chinese *cough*) investment
rediscovery of Zamrock with great reissues by Now-Again Records
Akhil discovers this video in April 2020
Ok not the last thing, but everything else.
Over the last decade, Zamrock has started to gain the international recognition it didn’t get during its short tenure. Jagari, the only remaining member of WITCH, and Rikki Ililonga, leader of genre stalwarts Musi-O-Tunya have embarked on international tours, Madlib has sampled Zamrock on Beat Konducta tapes, there have been interviews, features, lectures, etc. Even some Indian guy has written about them. In my view, all this attention is richly deserved. The albums I’ve heard belong in the rich pantheon of 70s psych-rock.
Among the global elites (incl. the urban elites of India), music from the Global South (is that a term that’s still in use? It seems awfully offputting to this Indian) is often either seen as a novelty, or is subjected to condescending orientalism. So often, for instance, Indian music is reduced to something that's of the body, not of the brain. In this way, it’s contrasted with Western music, which is somehow seen as more intellectual. And when this isn’t the case, it’s seen as something that’s neither of the body nor the brain, but of the soul, as something that isn’t unintellectual, but unintellectualisable. Besides, what is Indian music? Hindustani classical? Punjabi rap? Carnatic violin? Bengali folk dance? After all, there’s no such thing as ‘American’ music.
Point being, let’s stop doing that. Let’s commit to treating good music from different parts of the world as just good music, as more than just some symbol for a stereotype of the place from which it comes. That means no referring to the oud as a pious instrument by default, or the veena as a meditative one, or the djembe as a primal one. With that lecture done, please enjoy the WITCH’s Lazy Bones and Amanaz’s Africa on the links below.
Lazy Bones: Bandcamp
Africa: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube
