Exiled Zimbabwean Musician Thomas Mapfumo Retires

After five decades on the stage, one of the continent's great musical innovators, and an outspoken critic of corrupt politics, has taken his last bow - in exile, because it was too dangerous to go home.

Mapfumo - affectionately known as Mukanya - returned to perform in Zimbabwe after more than a decade in 2018, following Mugabe's removal from power by his own soldiers. Staged in Harare before thousands of Zimbabweans who had not seen him play live since the early 2000s, it ended as the sun was coming up. But when his brother Lancelot, a long-serving percussionist in his band, died in 2022, Mapfumo said he couldn't come back to bury him as he feared for his life. The truce he had made with Mugabe's successors was short-lived, writes Percy Zvomuya for African Arguments.