Evaluation of music in Zambia: preferences

Evaluation of music in Zambia: preferences. What do people in Chibale care for most in music and dance?

In this article, we provide a brief overview and comparison of the preferences for songs, dances and performers in the 1980s and in the 2000s.

Favourite songs and dances

Table S: Favourite types of songs and dances in 1985/86 and 2004.¹To create this overview, we have grouped similar genres into single categories. These include: possession cults’ songs, the kalindula of the Cila and Sandauni, the songs of the christian denominations, other Chibale genres (the social dance songs preceding kalindula, and women’s music), the ilimbalakata and other men’s music, and national Kalindula and Lumba. When not heard or seen in context, a significant proportion of the interviewees were unable to distinguish between genres that were grouped together, for instance, between Mwami and Ciwila music.

There are six groups of favourite song and dance genres. In the 1980s, the songs and dances of the spirit-possessed and of Kalindula were most popular. In the 2000s, christian songs were most popular, while the dances of four groups were popular, with the two remaining groups (possession dances and ilimbalakata) not scoring much lower.
The shifts in popularity of christian songs and dances, and possession songs and dances, were significant. In the course of the 1990s, the possession cults lost their impact and became more marginal in the years that followed, although their dancing remained popular. Conversely, the number of christians rose from less than 60% to almost 90%, and christian dancing emerged.
Remarkable was the decline in the percentage of people stating that they had no favourite song or dance, and of those who said they did not like to dance. In the 1980s, there was a mixture of aversion and fear: Jehovah’s Witnesses regarding all “Lala music” and other christians regarding possession music. What caused the aversion was the idea that music was the work of Satan or that it was too un-christian. The idea instilling fear was that the nearness of music would make one more open to it and to its context. The latter shows that the ideas about the relation between the nearness and the effects of music were a generally shared feature in Chibale in the 1980s. With the decline of spirit possession, christians, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, took on a more relaxed attitude towards local music and dance.

Preferences, town and modernity

In the 1980s

Evaluation of music in Zambia: preferences. Some may consider it striking that ‘town music’ (national kalindula and lumba), let alone western music, was only the favourite of a few in the 1980s. The average time spent in town during that period was ten years for men and five and a half years for women. Some people had just returned from town or were living both in Chibale and in town. Furthermore, up to a few years before Survey 1985/86 was held, working in town was generally considered a better alternative to starting one’s own farming enterprise.

The importance of town versus the unimportance of town music in the 1980s

Two points address this apparent discrepancy.
First of all, town life was not ‘western’ for most people. Equating living in town with a westernised way of living is a mistake. People in town could well be more ‘traditional’ than those in Chibale, even if they did use a minibus and have water or electricity. It is likely that many of the reinvented traditions in the rural areas in Zambia since the 1970s were based on features that had survived in town. This holds for the resurgence of possession cults and later for the rekindling of girls’ initiation.
Secondly, living in town was often merely an alternative, not an ultimate goal. Many people returned after a number of years, and many left Chibale with the intention of returning once they had become wealthier. Instead of feeding upon a superior, more modern, or better-adapted culture, staying in town for them was part of a strategy to eventually ‘stay the same’.²David Gordon (2003: 133) while discussing Ferguson (1999): “Ferguson contends that workers always retained rural ties and identities; the teleology of ‘permanent urbanisation’ was a myth of modernity perpetuated by the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute anthropologists and later shared by workers who sought to distinguish urban from rural life. […] Ferguson’s argument is strengthened by the prolonged recession that shattered Zambian expectations of modernity.”

In the 2000s

In the 2000s, with an average town experience for both sexes of six years, the preference for ‘town music’ had risen considerably, with western music again playing no role. This has to do with the declining appreciation for possession music and with greater exposure to town music within Chibale itself. The latter was one of the consequences of the increased circulation of money in the 1990s.

Favourite drummers

Evaluation of music in Zambia: preferences. Pepa Bulaya was by far the most popular drummer (79 mentions) in the 1980s. He was followed by Danyelu Chibanda Bulangu (18 mentions), Tapsoni Mafuta (11) and Kunda Yokoyo (10). All of them drummed at occasions where the mediums performed. Other drummers scored fewer than 7 mentions.

Favourite singers, dancers and bringers of (‘new’) songs

Popularity was important for mediums in the 1980s. Let’s see whether they were indeed popular or had to compete with performers of other types of music. Basing ourselves on Table S above, we would expect that the rank order of favourite performers to be: first mediums, then at some distance kalindula performers, followed at a distance by performers of the other types. In reality, the rank order shows mediums alone at the top, followed at a large distance by kalindula performers and, lastly, by a few performers of the other types. More than 80% of the favoured performers were mediums or people working with them (drummers and kampenga).
People often mentioned three performers as favourite dancer, favourite singer, and favourite bringer of (‘new’) songs. These were the mediums Kansenkele (Shemu Mambwe), who was mentioned 36, 35, and 32 times respectively; bamukaNdubeni (banaNshimbi): 25, 22, and 19 times; and Chalebaila (Salati Mukoti): 24, 24, and 17 times. All other performers scored fewer than 7 mentions in any of the three categories.

Thus, in the 1980s, although a quarter of the population preferred possession music and dance, 80% of the population preferred performers of that music. The gatherings with music at which the spirit-possessed performed provided the stage for real-time evaluation of performance. At other types of gatherings, like the Sandauni, people also evaluated performance, but more casually and less focused. The evaluation of the performance of mediums also involved more. Their musical prowess was a sign of their medical and spiritual power.

Table T: Favourite dancer and favourite singer in 1985/86 and 2004.³To create this overview, we have grouped similar genres into single categories. These include: possession cults, the kalindula Cila and Sandauni, the christian denominations, other Chibale genres (the social dances and Cila preceding kalindula, and women’s music), and within national Kalindula and Lumba. When not heard or seen in context, a significant proportion of the interviewees were unable to distinguish between that were grouped together, for instance, between Mwami and Ciwila music.

Favourite dancer and favourite singer in 1985/86 and 2004

Evaluation of music in Zambia: preferences. In the 2000s⁴In Survey 2004, we only asked people for their favourite singer and favourite dancer., only four performers were mentioned more than twice. The most frequently mentioned performer is Chibale Katumpa (four times), who in 2004 danced as ing’omba at the Kabwelamushi (see Film 20). In 1981, as a young woman, she sang the pounding song Song 181.
We can conclude that the three famous mediums of the 1980s have not been succeeded by other famous mediums. See banaNshimbi’s commentary on the difference between the two periods. The decline of the spirit possession cults made it less important to be successful, as the audience/chorus at rituals, like in the period before the rise of Mwami, were cult group members and their relatives. A medium can now become well-known by dancing at cultural heritage/identity celebrations like the Kabwelamushi.
People appreciate performers of other genres more than they did in the 1980s. With most of the people being christians, christian performers, notably singers, are preferred much more than in the 1980s. Appreciation for Kalindula performers has remained more or less the same, though Kalindula gatherings occur less frequently than in the 1980s. People also prefer performers of other Chibale genres much more. The rekindling of girls’ initiation and the connected women’s music plays a prominent role in this. Lastly, there is more appreciation for performers of town music.

Larger-scale gatherings: Ipupo, Cibombe, Church, Old beer party, Sandauni, and Bar, clearly are the settings for the music and the dance preferred in Chibale. The stages for performers in the 1980s were the Ipupo and the Cibombe. In the 2000s, this had shifted to Church, Bar, and Cultural heritage/Identity events.

Reasons to prefer a song, dance and performer

Evaluation of music in Zambia: preferences. Kansenkele could truly cast a spell; his starting was incredible, his presence inescapable, his style fine: you could not stop looking and listening.
Ndubeni was there, observing the proceedings of everything like a lioness, but also truly dancing, dancing, very commanding with much maka.
Chalebaila was exotic, extremely forceful and imposing, varied and resourceful.
To me, it was no wonder that they were by far the most popular singer-dancers in the 1980s.

In another article in this series, we will investigate why the general public in Chibale preferred them. And in two other articles, why the general public preferred certain songs and dances.