Indigenous Foods in the Context of a Crisis in Mtukudzi’s Song Tsika Dzedu (Our Culture) and The Bhundu Boys’ Song Chekudya Chose (All the Dishes)

Aphios Nenduva; Charles Tembo

doi:10.25159/2663-6549/18985

Authors

Aphios Nenduva Midlands State University https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5180-9338
Charles Tembo Midlands State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25159/2663-6549/18985

Keywords:

African diet, Afrocentric, decolonising, herbalist, nutritionist, indigenous African foods

Abstract

In the African worldview, music plays a pivotal role as a conduit of individual and community healing. Music plays an indispensable role in the lives of Africans in politics, religious worship, economic engagement, and other facets of life. This article explores the concept of African diet as medicine in selected Zimbabwean musical voices. The voices present two schools of thought, namely, one that celebrates indigenous African foods and the other that forges a non-selective approach to all foods. We contend that because of its power to reach a wider audience, music must forge a healthy diet against the debilitating effects of unchecked diets that turn out to be toxic and disease-infested. That has a thorough-going and far-reaching impact on the lives of Africans. Against that background, it is expected of any voice on food to reclaim and celebrate indigenous African foods as the magic formula for a productive and healthy life because it is part of African heritage that has sustained African people for centuries. It has guaranteed purposeful agency, and Western foods have tended to diminish that agency. The rallying point in this paper is two songs, namely Tsika dzedu (Our culture) by Oliver Mtukudzi and Chekudya Chose (All dishes) by Bhundu Boys. This effort is within the decolonial agenda as we argue for the reclamation of indigenous food in a Eurocentrically contrived world. We proceed from the premise that Africa is in a crisis; a crisis that finds its fountainhead in her contact with European culture that has pushed indigenous food and other aspects to the periphery.

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