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Abstract
Death occupies a special space in the Shona cosmology. It is a central part of the three realms of life, the 'living unborn', the 'living living' and the 'living dead'. It connects these three life forms together by ensuring the passage of life from the realm of the 'living living' to that of the 'living dead'. Among the Shona, death continues to be characterised in negative terms, feared at least and unwelcome and to be avoided at any cost yet it plays such a central role in connecting the three life forms. Thus, confronting death, even in everyday discourses is not a favourite endeavour for many. In this article we present a song by sungura genre artist Nikolas Zakaria and his band the Khiama Boys titled Rufu Chitsidzo, meaning death is inevitable off the album Zvirimudzimba (1997). We argue that Zakaria carefully presented a dreaded subject in a more palatable manner through persuading God to spare the human race the unbearable suffering which usually accompanies death. That way, Zakaria besieges the Creator; we transcend from one life form to another without enduring much suffering. The methodology used in this article is critical analysis and the conclusion reached is that various forms of art and popular culture can be effectively deployed to discuss contentious and or feared subjects such as death among the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
Keywords: Rufu Chitsidzo, Nikolas Zakaria, death, Shona, transcendence
Introduction
One of the most difficult tasks is to characterise the attitude of the Shona people towards death. It is expected yet is always received with shock and disbelieve even in cases where the passed on would have been very ill with little chances of survival. This death occupies a central and pivotal space, just like its opposite birth, in the life of the Shona people. It's inevitably notwithstanding, death is always treated with a reverence and an element of fear. In this article we present Nicholas Zakaria's song titled Rufu Chitsidzo (1997) (death is a must) as an endeavour pursued through popular arts to present the subject of death in a more palatable format. For the Shona, death does not constitute a crisis, but the seemingly concomitant pain is undeservedly excruciating, Zakaria rightly bemoans. In his song, he...