Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
RISE Kagona’s voice came in a whisper as he spoke as if something had got hold of his throat and was trying to choke the words out of him.
It was April of 2018 and Kagona was speaking on the phone from his base in Edinburg in the United Kingdom.
“Hello, can you hear me?” he hissed several times from the capital of Scotland.
This reporter had spent the best part of a fortnight trying to get hold of Kagona. Countless messages on Facebook and other social media platforms later, an interview had been arranged after Kagona had finally forwarded his number.
On the scheduled day and time of the interview, however, things were falling apart. Technology, so often an ally for the modern journalist, was revealing itself to be an adversary and instead of Kagona’s usual boisterous and forceful voice, only a whisper that could barely be heard filtered through the landline handset.
Rise Kugona
The much-anticipated interview, it seemed, was slipping away. However, Kagona was a patient man. The interview could be done the next day, he said, as it would not be an inconvenience to him.
When the interview did happen the next day, it was quite clear why Kagona was so patient.
Simply put, he was a man who had a lot to get off his chest.
The death of Biggie Tembo in 1995 from suicide was just the delivery of a long-delayed final nail in the coffin of a group that had once promised to be a newly independent Zimbabwe’s leading light in the world of music.
Tembo’s death was almost as tragic as the demise of a group that Kagona had founded in April 1980. According to Kagona, Bhundu Boys died in instalments, with the initial seed of their demise planted by Gordon Muir, the man who began managing the group when it signed with Warner Brothers in the UK.
“Gordon Muir, our manager, got 20 percent off everything that we made. So when the deal with Warner came along, he realised that he wanted a house. But the 20 percent that he would be getting from the deal would not be enough to buy a house so he tried to convince the group that buying a house was a smart idea. This was something that I was resistant to from the start,” said Kagona.
Bhundu Boys (Rise Kugona extreme right)
According to Kagona, Muir had dangled a tantalising £180 000 carrot in front of the group, as he hoped to turn them against Kagona, the man who had brought them all together.
“I wanted us to invest back home. When we left Zimbabwe all of us were living with our parents. I was living in Mufakose; David was from Bulawayo and so rented one room in Harare while Shaky was also from Karoi and didn’t have a home in Harare. Biggie was from Chinhoyi as well.
“So I told them that it wouldn’t make sense for us to buy a house in the United Kingdom because we were there on work permits and Margaret Thatcher could suddenly change her mind and stop foreigners from coming in. Who would carry the house to Harare?” said Kagona.
What stood out from that conversation with Kagona was how even 23 years after Tembo’s tragic death, Kagona still seemed to have found it hard to forgive Tembo for the downfall of a group that had promised so much? When he spoke of Tembo, or Judas Iscariot as he called him at times, there was a bitter edge to Kagona’s voice which betrayed his frustration and sense of betrayal at the events that led to the group’s eventual fall.
In the end, the death of the Bhundu Boys was an act of democracy. When Muir realised that he could not convince Kagona to take the direction he advised, he decreed that the fate of the group would be decided by what the majority wanted.
Keyboard player Shakespeare Kangwena, and bass player David Mankaba had already been convinced by Muir’s proposal but Kagona, Tembo, and drummer Kenny Chitsvatsva were unmoved by Muir’s promises. They wanted to invest back home instead of buying a house in the UK.
When Kagona went to bed the day before they were to sign an agreement confirming that, he slept soundly in the belief that he had the numbers on his side. However, while he slept, Muir was hard at work, wining and dining with Tembo while whispering into his ear, promising him a lucrative solo career should he ditch Kangwena and Mankaba.
Smitten with the idea of finally breaking out of as a solo star, Tembo sunk his teeth into the forbidden fruit. It was a betrayal that Kagona had a hard time forgiving over the years.
“The night before we were to have the vote the manager took Biggie out. At the time we didn’t know what was being discussed there but I was satisfied that my brother would stick by me. On the day that we were supposed to sign the agreement, Gordon all of a sudden called for a meeting.
“I was convinced that the meeting was all about clearing the air. I thought we would go on as agreed but instead called for a vote. That’s when Judas Iscariot (Biggie Tembo) sold us out,” said Kagona.
Things went downhill for the Bhundu Boys from that point onwards. The trust that had once existed between friends who became brothers in the dusty streets of Highfields in Harare had evaporated in the British Isles.
In the years that followed, Bhundu Boys only interacted when they were on stage together. Beyond that, they were perfect strangers.
Muir had a violent falling out with Tembo at Debbie Metcalfe’s cottage upon which details of the dastardly agreement that the pair had struck came to light. The rest of the group refused to forgive Tembo even when he wrote a letter of apology for his actions.
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Tembo died four years after he left the group, hanging himself after he broke free from a straitjacket in a mental institution. For years prior to that, he drank whisky straight from the bottle, telling his wife that it was the only thing that helped him find sleep. Very often, she narrated, he never slept and in the end he started experiencing the hallucinations that would eventually lead to his suicide.
Kagona dedicated his life to music while nursing the hangover from a dream that never truly was. The Bhundu Boys are spoken of as one of Zimbabwe’s greatest exports. This is true. They were signed to one of the biggest music labels in the world and they even raised the curtain for the queen of pop, Madonna. Those are noteworthy achievements in a country that has not had a lot of noteworthy music exports.
However, Kagona and many others were left to wonder what could have been if the Bhundu Boys had gotten genuine guidance or made better decisions.
After Kagona’s death last week, Zimbabwean music lovers can hope that maybe Tembo, Kagona, and the other departed Bhundu Boys can call a truce, belt out Simbimbino, and find the peace that eluded them on earth.