Financial Gazette (Harare)
Stanley Kwenda
16 May 2008
Harare — AFTER thrilling fans at the recent Chimanimani Arts Festival, the musical group Bongo Love will embark on a four-month tour of the United States on Sunday.
The tour will take the group to Boston, Washington State, New York, and Boulder Colarado, where it will conduct music and dance workshops.
The group will perform their first show on May 18 at Needham in Massachusetts -- a concert organised by Plugged Inn, who are also facilitators of the tour.
Plugged Inn organised a three-day concert for the group at Madison Square Garden, which attracted an audience of about 2 000 people per night in July 2007.
Band leader John Mambira said the tour was a confirmation of the growing audience the group has in the US.
"We are building an audience that appreciates our music. A lot of people want to hear more and each time we visit we keep on building from where we left the previous year," said Mambira.
Band manager Hannah Wahl confirmed that the classes that will be conducted by the group in the US were fully booked.
"People look forward to learning more about Zimbabwean music. Our workshops look at how to use marimba, mbira and Zimbabwean traditional dance," said Wahl.
He said the group would launch its second album Rwendo Rwedu in Boston, towards the end of May.
The nine-track album features hit songs such as Africa, Kuonana and a remix of the hit song Ndasara Ndega, which became an instant hit with audiences in Zimbabwe and the US.
However, in the new album, Ndasara Ndega has been presented in Afrocoustics with no guitars to provide an exotic musical sendition that makes the remix far much cozier than the original beat.
Bongo Love was formed in Bulawayo by John Mambira, who still heads the band and Nhlanhla Ngwenya, who has now moved to the UK to work on a drumming project.
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