The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu
THE first time I met Oliver Mtukudzi was in 1997. This is not completely true. We did not meet in the true sense of the word.
Instead I “met” Tuku as millions of other Zimbabweans had done — through the famous Olivine commercial on TV. Tuku had been a figure looming large, and starting to loom even larger on the country’s music scene in the late 90s.
His catalogue was already swelling with a number of hits and with songs such as Neria under his belt, he had already won the hearts of most Zimbabweans.
But he was yet to become that colossal that was suddenly transformed into the country’s first and only “superstar” by the pens of admiring writers at the turn of the century. Perhaps at that time, before he was a genuine star beyond the country’s borders, the myth and legend of Oliver Mtukudzi was still in the making.
For many of my age at that time, with little grasp of his message or music, Tuku was just another musician that our elders worshipped. He was a star, but one belonging to a distant galaxy, the world of the grown ups. That was until I saw the Olivine commercial.
Looking back at it now, that advert still sticks out, not only because it featured Oliver Mtukudzi, but because it represents another time, another country even. It represents the country Zimbabwe once was and is now trying to be again.
Those were the better days, the days were a time when young children wanted to become like the kids on adverts. The life their saw on their screens was not far off from their reality after all.
The Olivine commercial presented Tuku in a different light. Featuring a young Ammara Brown as his partner in song and all things fun, the advert was a far cry from the doom and gloom of Neria.
Quite simply, Neria was too scary especially for the young, a horror epic without blood in all but name.
On the Olivine advert, one of the first such campaigns by a local artiste, Tuku is at his playful best, as he jams on the intersection of Oli Way and Wine Street.
Capped by Tuku and Ammara exchanged infectious laughter, the advert was a hit especially with the young. One wonders how many children convinced their parents to buy Olivine whenever they went grocery shopping just because of it.
The advert had another effect — it made Oliver Mtukudzi cool, most crucially to the young. With the emergence of African American made genres like hip-hop, it was not exactly cool to like traditional Zimbabwean music or musicians if one was an urban youth.
The tendency was to look at them as rural or old at a time when many young Zimbabweans, with the help of TV and pop trends, were doing all in their power to break away from their own traditions.
Yet Tuku despite being as traditional as they come was cool. Even now, it’s been a wonder how Tuku has managed to get acceptance from the twitter loving, American music loving young urban Zimbabweans of today the way that a Macheso, for example, has not been able. It is clearly not just a matter of music.
That was the Tuku many of us knew then: fun, infectious, cool and playful.
The second time that I met Tuku was in 2015 backstage at the Large City Hall. This was my first year as a full time journalist and I was in search of a story.
It was also my first time seeing Oliver Mtukudzi on stage and it’s a near religious experience. With only his guitar and Sam Mataure on drums, Tuku was mesmerising on stage.
The enthusiasm with which he jumped and skipped around on stage make it seem unbelievable that he is in his 60s. Perhaps that guitar was a time machine, transporting him back to his youth whenever he was on stage. For over an hour, he held his audiences within the grip of a strong spell, only loosening that grip in the brief intervals between songs.
When he was done I couldn’t clap and rejoice like audience members who seemed equally elated and relieved that they’ve finally escaped this wizard’s web. My job has only just begun.
Alongside Star FM’s Langelihle Ndlovu, we headed backstage where we found Tuku and Sam Mataure. After firing the first few questions, it became clear that the dream interview that I had envisaged was not about to happen.
Tuku was constantly on his toes, ready to evade any questions and fire back with volleys of his own. He and Mataure were an effective tag team, making sure that I hardly got anything of any substance.
In the end, the Star FM presenter asked Tuku to sing a song and suddenly the Tuku I had expected, the delightful energetic man always with a smile sketched on his face, was back.
He broke into a song and for less than a minute and the man that I had seen on stage, the man I had seen on that Olivine commercial all those years ago, was suddenly alive once again in front of me.
The hostile man barking one word answers into my recorder was buried, albeit temporarily. But as soon as his acapella chorus lapsed, he was back, abruptly calling time on the interview and leaving in a huff. Needless to say I left feeling like Tuku was not the man that I wished he was.
Tuku’s hostility, in sharp contrast to the joyful bursts of music that we had seen him exhibit earlier on stage, were maybe due to the circumstances under which the interview happened.
That interview came hot on the heels of the explosive book, Tuku Backstage by his former publicist Shepherd Mutamba. The book had set about destroying the myth that was Oliver Mtukudzi.
Mutamba had been Tuku’s lieutenant for many years and felt that his commander fell far short of the angel that his music portrayed.
“He’s not as good as he says he is,” the pages in Mutamba’s book seemed to cry.
When I left the City Hall that night, a sorry interview safe in my pocket, I became a believer in Mutamba’s version of events.
Perhaps the Tuku I knew, that slender man leading youngsters in song on improvised instruments on that Olivine commercial, did not exist.
The third time I met Tuku was only a few weeks ago.
It was perhaps the first time that I actually got to understand his charm and the holds on the ordinary Zimbabwean, young and old.
Tuku had just finished another interview at a local radio station and was about to have breakfast at a local cafe, frequented by the well to do.
When he walked, it was with a sizable entourage which included a pair of bodyguards and a few journalists marching in step behind his heels.
The reaction of those at the joint told us all we needed to know about the celebrity of the man. One after another the older patrons would turn to each other, quizzing those next to them on whether they had seen the whirlwind that had just blew past.
A few young girls stood as if in a trance, with looks that suggested they had screams suppressed in their chests.
For this interview I came ready for a hostile Tuku and he did not disappoint, playing a game of cat and mouse with almost all the questions.
I asked him why people loved Neria and he answered indifferently “I don’t know.” I suggested that perhaps it was because of the emotional connection people had with the song and “Maybe that’s it,” is all I got.
For the most part however, the superstar was less guarded than he had been last time.
Ever since Walter Wanyanya has taken over, Tuku has been open, even opening a Twitter account that has made him even more accessible to his fans, especially his younger followers.
Perhaps he is not a perfect human being. Perhaps like other great men before him he has his flaws and having been stung once or twice by the media he can at times understandably be hostile towards it.
What he presents however, is a chance for Zimbabweans to present one of their own with the flowers while he can still smell them. As he celebrates his 66th birthday (Saturday 22 September), his life is a reminder that beautiful things can be said about someone great before we reach for our pens and pads to scribble their obituaries. Happy birthday Tuku.
