Shabazz Palaces’ Tendai Maraire returned this month with his Chimurenga Renaissance project, releasing the Girlz With Gunz 11-song EP via Glitterbeat on February 2nd. Joined by guitarist Hussein Kalonji, whose father Raymond Braynck Kalonji was a Congolese guitar legend credited with starting the Rumba/Soukouss sound, the duo comes from quite the musical pedigree, as Maraire’s father, Abraham Dumisani Maraire, was a master performer of the traditional Zimbabwean instrument–the mbira. Taking their name from a word in the Shona language which loosely translates as “revolutionary struggle”, Chimurenga Renaissance celebrates not only African liberation movements, but the struggle for social change internationally.
Girlz With Gunz promises, “otherworldly sonics, Zimbabwean beats, Congolese guitar ambiance, [and] political heat”, and it delivers with razor sharp, poetically charged lyrics and an evocative soundtrack that weaves hip-hop into African styles with cinematic ease. The album stream is accompanied by an amazing 26 minute video directed by LA-based videographer Daniel Kaufman, and following the album’s title it uses a revolving stage and back-lit colored lighting to render it’s dramatic personae as riveting and imposing figures. In addition, we would be remiss without reprinting this outstanding bit of accompanying text by Seattle Stranger‘s associate editor Charles Mudede. The Rhodesian born writer’s short piece accompanies the EP’s promotion, and reminds us that this project is inspired by very real struggles filtered through moving and personal recollection’s of revolution and diaspora…
Remembering Grace, a Girl with a Gun:
After spending the night listening to Girlz with Gunz, I spent the day remembering Grace Maseva. She was always cheerful, always smiling, and always making bawdy jokes. For her, sexual organs were a normal part of life. A person must pee and play with something. Thats just how things are; a tree has fruit, a baboon has that prideful butt, we have our special business. She would laugh and laugh. She was also a great cook. Always did the greens just right. She also fought in the Second Chimurenga, the war that ended white rule in Zimbabwe.
Grace was a trained killer.
Grace, who survived a brutal war but not the spread of AIDS, could clean, assemble, and load an AK-47. She knew when to duck for cover, when to charge, and when to fire her weapon. There were many women like her in the War of Independence, and their sacrifice, dedication, and general brilliance is celebrated in Girlz with Gunz. This is the spirit of the work. The collaboration between two very talented American-based African musicians, Tendai Maraire and Hussein Kalonji (aka Chimurenga Renaissance), translates the fire of the revolutionary African woman into a music thats richly and thickly innovative.
It is fitting indeed that the most experimental, dazzling, and even dangerous work by Chimurenga Renaissance, a duo that is a part of the trans-African Black Constellation (Shabazz Palaces, THEESatisfaction, Erik Blood), is inspired by women like my cousin, Grace. She was once a girl with a gun. She was trained to kill her oppressors. She wanted to build and live in a better world. Peace always has a price.
