Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
WHEN Aaron Chaka attended the funeral of Oliver Mtukudzi in February 2019, he did not know he had something in common with another mourner at the same wake.
At that point in his life, Chaka did not know that the late great musician was allegedly his father. For 40 years, Chaka had only known Mtukudzi as his uncle, a famous relative adored by an entire country for his prowess as a musician.
However, at the funeral, he found himself labelled a troublemaker when he wanted to help carry his uncle’s casket.
He was, after all, an unknown figure, even though he had been offering help during proceedings and some close relatives felt he had a resemblance to other children of the man who was being buried.
At the same funeral, lost in a crowd of grieving people, was one Memory Mtukudzi, a woman who was also struggling to find acceptance as the man she claimed to be her father was being laid to rest. Memory had come out a few years before, outing herself as Tuku’s lovechild after his alleged relationship with Barbara Siziba years prior. Her mother had passed away when she was eight and since then, she had been trying to trace her father.
After her headline-grabbing claims, a reconciliation of sorts had occurred with Tuku, with the musician even buying property for her in Cowdray Park before his death.
Rosie Makumbe
At that funeral, both Memory and Aaron had felt aggrieved by how they were treated, albeit for different reasons.
While Aaron thought he was being denied closer access to a beloved famous uncle, Memory felt that in death, like in life, her father was beyond reach. It would not be long before Aaron learned that like Memory, he had also been saying farewell to a father he never knew he had.
“After the funeral, my mother spoke to the last born in their family and said ‘Please talk to the young man and tell him to go to his father’s home’, referring to Mtukudzi,” he told ZTN in an interview last week.
“So I took my uncle and we went to see my father’s young brother, Nelson Mtukudzi. He said he had heard about this issue and he welcomed me as Nzou, my father’s totem.”
The fate that befell Aaron and Memory is familiar enough to many.
In Zimbabwe, it is not unheard of to hear of children, sometimes entire families, being “discovered” at funerals or immediately after. Usually, these children are given derogatory labels like mwana wemusango/umntwana wegangeni.
It is a painful experience for all involved as suddenly, children who were hidden all their lives find themselves revealed at a moment of intense grief while the “legitimate” children find themselves with additional siblings whose lives they know next to nothing about.
In most cases, the father’s relatives are fully aware of the existence of these children, which Aaron, who has been trying to change his surname, said was the case for him.
“We had done all the processes that were supposed to lead to me changing my name but the problem we faced when we went to the registry was that a death certificate was required. So my uncles said they don’t have it and the only person who does is Mtukudzi’s wife. So, they decided that we should instead start by going to the chief and he summoned my uncles and Amai Daisy from Norton. My uncles came but Amai Daisy did not so in the end the chief wrote a letter to the registry asking them to change my surname but when we got there they said this was not enough,” he said.
A child’s surname and, consequently, their totem, is something important in Zimbabwean culture. For illegitimate children, who do not carry their father’s surname, life can be difficult.
Often, they find even the problems that they face in life linked to their unclaimed heritage. It is a fate that many have failed to escape and one that Aaron, a musician, is now trying to wriggle away from.
Aaron Chaka
“Right now, if I were to release music, who would I say my name is? For instance, the family from the surname that I was using all this time said that your mother said you are not our child and therefore they cannot allow me to go on using their name. They said they allowed me to use it so that I can go to school. So, I am now waiting for my surname to be changed.
“I don’t know if I will get anything if my name is changed but growing up, there was nothing that my father did for me. Everything I had, my mother did for me. As a child I also looked forward to my father taking me to school and doing other things that a father does for their children but as a person who didn’t even know who my father was, there was nothing that I could do. In one of his songs, he sang that he worked for his children and his family. I also feel like I am one of the children that he should have worked for as well.”
Many men in Zimbabwe have found themselves ambushed at work by women who bring their children to the workplace, in the hope that embarrassment might encourage their one-time lovers to finally play a role in their long-lost children’s lives.
For Tuku, the stage was his workplace and in 2017, Memory went to confront her father at the ZITF, demanding that he make up for the neglect she felt over the years.
According to Aaron, his mother also had to do the same in 2010 at the Harare Gardens. At the time, Aaron did not know that the man being confronted was his father, but was instead enchanted by the thought of meeting a famous uncle.
“I was using my mother’s surname Chaka. When I was growing up, I was always told that he (Mtukudzi) was my uncle so around 2010, I went to my mother and said, How can I suffer when I have an uncle that has a lot of musical equipment? I had an interest in music so I thought it would only be fair if we went to him and asked for help and advice. So we went to see him, he had just come from South Africa and had a show at Harare Gardens.
“When we got there, the bouncers did not allow us to get in and my mother asked them how they could refuse us entry when her sister, Jack Sadza, used to run the band. They then went to tell him that there was a woman at the gate who was shouting, trying to get in. That’s when he (Tuku) came and said bring my child to band practice. To me at the time, it didn’t make sense why he was referring to me as his child. I thought he only called me that because he was my uncle, which meant that traditionally, I was his child,” he said.
In 1983, the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson wrote Billie Jean, a song about a woman who claims that the child she has just given birth to belongs to the song’s narrator.
It is a song Jackson wrote after he saw the number of “groupies” he said claimed to have children with his brothers, members of the Jackson 5, while they were active.
When Aaron’s mother, Rosie Makumbe, claimed that Tuku was his father, some on social media labelled her another Billie Jean, which was worse in this case because the man being accused died five years ago.
Like many Zimbabweans in similar situations, Aaron will never have the pleasure of getting answers from a man that he only knew as his father after he had passed on.
“The next day, my mother went to Norton alone and she was told that I should go and see him,” he recalled of the encounter in 2010.
“I went to his house but I was told that he had gone to Pakare Paye and so I followed him there. When I got there, I had to wait for him but after he finished he came and once again said my child is here.
“I still thought he only referred to me in that way because he was my uncle. Eventually, he took me to some guys who were doing music and said ‘Help him with everything he needs’. He then sat down with me and asked if I had a house or a car. I said I didn’t and he said I will help you with these things and he promised that he would also introduce me to the other children at home,” he said.