RADAR: HEAR THIS

Bantu Spaceship’s eponymous album signals a new frontier for the New Jit Wave

So, there’s a dazzle of zebra, a memory of elephant, a crash of rhino; but what’s the collective noun for a group of visionaries turning the Zimbabwe music scene on its head? Bantu Spaceship? I think so.

The band Bantu Spaceship is led by Joshua Madalitso Chiundiza, formerly of alt hip-hop group Monkey Nuts, and Ulenni Okandlovu, the creative mastermind behind the Skeyi & Strobo culture brand and Zimbabwe’s super-fun Fabrik parties. The duo first came onto each other’s radar in 2014 after a Monkey Nuts gig at Book Café, Harare’s famous former cultural hub (about which you can read more in “The View” section of this magazine). It was a fortuitous meeting of musical minds.

Now performing live with vocalist Thando Mlambo and guitarist the Serpant, Bantu Spaceship is pioneering its own form of Afrofuturism: taking mid-Eighties jit and chimurenga and stirring it up with disco and electronica. The result is a sizzling melting pot of Zimbabwean music old and new, celebrating the rise of the New Jit Wave.

BANTU SPACESHIP IS
A SIZZLING MELTING POT OF ZIMBABWE MUSIC OLD AND NEW

Bantu Spaceship’s eponymous album was launched earlier this year on Nyami Nyami Records, a Paris-based label that focuses on music from southern Africa. This release is a masterful journey through the music history of this part of the continent.

Alongside Ulenni’s mesmerising Ndebele chants and soft spoken word, Josh weaves his sound production magic through the modern-day beats of South Africa’s DJ Kid Fonque, vocals and keys from Thandi Ntuli, and rhymes of Kwani Experience’s Kwela Sekele.

Rewinding the clock, “Mhondoro” samples Robson Banda’s 1985 hit “Dzinomwa Muna Save”, a John Peel favourite; and Ngosimbi Crew’s Sam Mabukwa provides a sungura-flavoured guitar riff throughout “Don’t Break”. The Kid Fonque club remix of “Journey To Misava” is a particular favourite, its heart-jolting beat introduced by the familiar tone of the Nineties modem dial-up, a gorgeous aural flashback for anyone who spent their teenage years waiting for the actual proper internet to be invented.

While giving a respectful nod to its musical forebears, Bantu Spaceship’s new jit generation sound has thrown a rock into Zimbabwe’s deep pool of magical music, its ripples already being felt through soundsystems across the country. Excitingly, this evolution has only just begun.

Bantu Spaceship (Nyami Nyami Records) is out now. Instagram: @bantuspacestation

Words by Milly McPhie