Description
Piranha Records, a Berlin-based independent record label, was founded in 1987 to produce and distribute mainly African, Gypsy and Jewish music.
One of Piranha’s first productions was an album of mbira (thumb piano or sanza) music from Zimbabwe by one of the only female mbira players in the country, Stella Chiweshe. The album, Ambuya!, brought to international attention Chiweshe and her singing and playing of the mbira dzavadzimu, the traditional instrument of the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
Stella Chiweshe stands as one of the most enduring and successful women activists in African music. She started playing the Mbira and performing in her motherland Zimbabwe despite all kinds of racial and male dominant mentalities of that time, setting a spectacular example of how music can cross all kinds of borders.
Now, some 33-and-one-third years since its release (a nice turntable pun), Ambuya! has been remastered and reissued on vinyl and CD, the latter of which includes songs recorded for a John Peel Session on BBC radio in 1988.
As with Thomas Mapfumo, a long-time World Beat favourite, Chiweshe had to leave Zimbabwe after independence in 1980; she is now based in Germany from where she continues to tour, record and teach.
