Struggles for the survival of Portuguese Colonialism and for the Nation-Building in Mozambique: The Life and Music of Fany Mpfumo (1920-1990)

The singer and songwriter Fany Mpfumo, born in the capital city of Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, probably in 1928, became famous during late colonialism in Mozambique. After the independence, in 1975, especially in the 1980’s, he struggled to continue living by his music. Mpfumo died in 1987, relatively poor. Having started his career in Johannesburg, during the 1950’s, he achieved his first recognition in Mozambique during the 1960’s, through radio broadcasts. He was elected, in 1964, the “King of Radio”. Between 1973 and 1982, Mpfumo's compositions were printed in more than eight singles albums by different labels. His first album (1973), identified his music as an example of “Tsonga Traditional” music. In the same year, during a Mpfumo concert at Lourenço Marques, he was described as a “ronga strain singer”. In another sense, José Craveirinha and Luis Bernardo Honwana, two nationalist Mozambican writers, pointed to Mpfumo, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, as one of the creators of marrabenta, the music style considered today as the Mozambique national rhythm. Both identified the emergence of marrabenta as a suburban phenomenon, stablishing a difference between “ethnic” and “traditional” music X “modern” and “national” music, represented by marrabenta. This presentation aims to analyze the life, music, and disputes surrounding Fany Mpfumo's trajectory during the late colonial and post-colonial periods in Mozambique. The biographical approach will be used particularly to present a non-linear and conflicted perspective of Mozambique's nation-building process through culture.