RADAR

HEAR THIS

With ‘Feja Feja’, Flying Bantu’s first album since 2019, the sky’s the limit for this Victoria Falls Afrofusion five-piece

As stage backdrops go, the Old Fort in Zanzibar’s Stone Town is hard to beat. At this year’s Sauti za Busara music festival in February, the up-lit 17th-century courtyard played host to 24 acts from around Africa; bands from Uganda, DRC and Kenya shared the stage with fellow artists from Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique and, of course, Zimbabwe.

Maybe it was Zanzibar’s baking heat which made it too hot to mosh, but this year’s festival crowd was, for the most part, a little subdued. While the bands worked their talented socks off, the audience only managed some toe-tapping and neck-nodding – an odd sight in Africa, a place where if there’s music, there’s dancing.

All was not lost, though, as Zimbabwe’s Flying Bantu took to the stage on the Saturday night (above). Suited and booted in colourful kimonos and smart eyelet-studded jackets (all made by the 12-year-old Zimbabwean design prodigy, Evelyn Mubochwa) the five-piece act from Victoria Falls finally got the crowd going, the band’s glorious Afrofusion sound bouncing off the battlements buoyed by a raucous contingent of joyful fans from Zimbabwe.

We last saw Flying Bantu play live just before Covid took away our nights out and stopped rising stars in their tracks. In 2019 the band was on the ascendant; its newly released album Ceasefire had won wide acclaim, and its track “Sunshine City” had taken the prize for Most Outstanding Music Video at Zimbabwe’s National Arts Merit Awards. But then that most cruel twist of fate, Covid, shut down the world.

So many hopes and dreams were lost during the Covid years – young, brilliant talents immobilised by lockdowns and face masks and fear. But Flying Bantu hunkered down, waiting it out, refusing to be silenced by circumstance. They jammed, they wrote, they developed and most importantly, they polished themselves into the tight act that blew the roof off the Zanzibar festival.

‘EVEN THOUGH WE SING ABOUT DARK STUFF, THERE’S
A SENSE OF JOY TOO’

Their new album Feja Feja will be released later this year, its title track a nod to the street gambling game that’s emptied many a man’s wallet, and a reference to the wearying, on-the-hoof decision-making that is life in Zimbabwe.
“This album speaks of the mood of disenfranchisement that we all feel,” says Flying Bantu frontman Nash. “But it doesn’t sound like we’re moaning, we’re just trying to express our emotions through our music.”

“This album also reflects the sentiments of loss that we all experienced during Covid – the feeling of missing someone and mourning the loss of the life that we led before,” says Nash. “Loss is an emotion, and we need to celebrate all of our emotions, even the sadder ones,” he continues. “So even though there are darker themes to this album, there’s a real sense of joy to it too.”

There is a lot of joy ahead for this talented band: a successful tour of South Africa earlier this year has paved the way for appearances at key festivals in Zimbabwe and across the continent in 2024. With the release of the brilliant Feja Feja, it’s clear that Flying Bantu has found its wings.

Words by Milly McPhie

Visit: www.flyingbantu.com
IG: @flyingbantu