Chiwoniso @ Nuits D'Afrique 2010

Chiwoniso
Zimbabwe World Music
Biography :

Chiwoniso was born in 1976 in Washington State. His family was then living in the United States, with her father studying ethnomusicology in Seattle. She spent the first seven years of her life there but, even while far from her native Zimbabwe, she soaked up the music of her country. Both her parents were musicians, with her father playing the mbira (a sort of thumb piano) and her mother singing. Both gave music classes at their home, and they both loved listening to a broad variety of musical styles, from James Brown to Mozart, from the Rolling Stones to Michael Jackson, from Bach to Aretha Franklin.

At age 4, Chiwoniso was already playing the mbira, and at age 9, she recorded in a studio for the first time on the album Tichazomuwona (We shall see you). Two years later, she began to play in her father's group, Mhuri ya Maraire (the Maraire family), along with her brother and sister, and in another of his father's groups, Minanzi III.

In 1990, she became a leading figure on the Zimbabwean scene, thanks to her place in the hip-hop group A Peace of Ebony, the most famous of Zimbabwe's rap groups. She also toured and recorded with one of the highest-profile groups at the time, Andy Brown and The Storm. In 1997, the insatiable Chiwoniso brought out her first solo album, Ancient Voices, winner of an RFI Découverte award in 1998. In the following years, she recorded songs for CARE, for the United Nations Development Program and for the Nobel Prize.

In 2005, she began working on her second solo album, Rebel Woman, which came out in 2008. Recorded in Zimbabwe, South Africa, England and Vermont, this work brought together several prestigious guests and mixes many styles. In it, Chiwoniso, sings about the struggles of her fellow citizens in finding work and leading simple lives. She also sings about the wisdom of elders, the need to act based on future generations, and the strength of certain women despite obstacles to their emancipation. In a Zimbabwe turned upside down, her country has all the more need of this convinced and convincing influence, this warm and powerful voice, carried along by fiery beats.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Chiwoniso
• Nuits D'AFrique
• World Music