Stella Chiweshe, who has died aged 76, was a rebel musician who transformed the music scene in Zimbabwe in the 1970s, when the country was still white-ruled Rhodesia. She did so by daring to play the mbira, the “thumb piano”, a small instrument with 22 to 28 metal keys, flattened at the playing end and attached to a wooden resonating box.
Often placed inside a large gourd for further amplification, the mbira plays a key role in the traditions of Shona culture, both sacred and secular, and is used to contact deceased ancestors and tribal guardians during all-night ceremonies. This “telephone to the spirits of people, water, trees and birds”, as Chiweshe called it, was considered so dangerous that it was banned by Rhodesia’s white authorities and by Christian missionaries. Traditionally, the mbira was only played by men, but Chiweshe defied convention, and became Africa’s best-known female mbira player.
