Imaginations and Narrations of the Nation: The Music of Raymond Majongwe and Brian Muteki in the Identity Construction of Post-2000 Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT This paper analyses Raymond Majongwe’s and Brian Muteki’s music to investigate the different ways in which these two musicians narrate and imagine the post-2000 Zimbabwean nation. A narrative analysis is carried out of specific songs that address issues related to the nation. Since the late 1990s and through the 2000s Zimbabwe has experienced socio-economic and political challenges that have greatly affected its citizens, leading to a mass exodus to neighbouring countries and those further afield in America, Europe, and Australia, a phenomenon that has attracted international attention. This has also engendered various imaginations and contestations of the nation. The arts have played a critical intervening and mediatory role in this regard, and artworks such as sculptures, music, drama, and films have been produced that speak to contested narratives, visions, and versions of the nation. They imagine, reflect, and speak to different issues in society with regard to political, economic, and social questions affecting the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. Musicians sometimes celebrate, praise, narrate, critique, and proffer their “visions” and “versions” of the nation, in the process becoming fundamental in its construction, reflection, and depiction.