Albert Nyathi in discussion with Irene Staunton

6 september 2006 I went to a school called Chobeani in the district of Kezi until Grade 3. I left school in 1973. I never really liked school. I used to play truant. There was no role model in our district in education terms. Even the teachers weren’t local. Our only role models were those who used to work in the gold mines in Johannesburg. I actually never thought of education as an important factor in my life. All I wanted was to go to Jo’burg, work in the gold mines, come back, buy a few goods and cattle, be a peasant farmer, marry and make merry. That was it. Have fun, in the countryside. 

After I left school, some time around 1976, I worked in Botswana as a herdboy. There and then, people were coming and going to join the [Zimbabwe liberation] struggle. As a herdboy, I knew some of them. So I joined them, and left the cattle behind. I went to Zambia towards the end of 1976. We travelled with the fighters to Botswana, and eventually to Zambia. We joined ZAPU. 

At the time, the movement had no idea what to do with us. Initially it was only elderly people who went to join the struggle, but now there were many of us who were relatively young. They didn’t know what to do. And while they were thinking about it, we just sat in a transit camp called Nampundu. Sometimes it was fun. We were mischievous, but it was also boring, and I missed my mother. My father also. He used to beat me up a lot, but I still missed him. We were sometimes homesick. So, If you were lucky, you would sneak out and join a truck in which they collected guys for training. 

I was lucky, so I ran away to a training camp called Membeshi, but then I was unlucky. I was spotted by Alfred Nikita Mangena, the army commander, and he said, “Hey, Young man! Come join me and have something else for you,” and so I went to stay at a place called Zimbabwe House in Lusaka for some months. Then ZAPU decided to open some schools for the youth and I went to JZ Moyo school a few kilometres from Lusaka. Girls had their own school called Victory Camp, popularly know as V.C. I went into Grade Four. Umdala Joshua Nkomo told us, “Now, look, your gun is your ballpoint!”

In 1980, after the war, I wanted to join the army, it was my sister who changed my mind. She told me, “You are not educated at all. So why don’t you at least get your junior certificate, ZJC. Then you could probably be a corporal. Right now you can’t even construct a proper sentence in English.” So I went back to school. We were lucky, school fees were paid for people who had been out [fighting the war], scholarships were provided. 

I went back to Mpumelelo primary, in Bulawayo to do my Grade 7. I was twenty and I was the head boy. Then I went to Msitheli secondary. I did my O-levels up to 1985. I then went to Matopo High School for A level, from 1986 to 1987. I was head boy again. Then I went to the University of Zimbabwe. I became a sub-warden, for New Complex Five. I was at UZ from 1987 to 1991 and did a BA General and then a year of Honours in English Literature. 

In ’92 I got a place at the University of Leeds to do a Masters in Theatre Studies, but somehow – because I came from a poverty-stricken family, I decided it was time I earned some money. So I joined the National Arts Council as their publication and information officer. While I was there, quite a few people were suspended in succession, yes? Each time I was asked to act, though I was not quite experienced. I had come straight from university. So I would be the acting director and then someone takes over and then they are suspended, and I would act again – [laughs]. The last time I was acting director was through the whole of ’96. 

But, going back a bit, I spent half a year in Denmark in 1994, my first time of going to Europe. I was sent by MS Zimbabwe, formerly the Danish Volunteer Service. I did a lot of poetry performances – by then I was a performance poet before that I’d been a singer. I was in the ZAPU choir, at JZ Moyo – way back, ’78 to ’80. There was an old choirmaster, Vakanya, who taught us to sing and dance and so on. And poetry, well ... I used to do poetry in the countryside, just a bit when I was young ... you know the kind of praise poetry that you do for your dog. For example: it runs about a lot, chases after rabbits, protects you, stands by you through thick and thin, and so on. And then when I was back at school, after independence, I would be asked to write a poem, say on prize-giving day. So I would write and perform my poems. Virtually all my headmasters liked me. 

Sometimes I used to plagiarise, you know, perform other people’s poems, without acknowledging them, because, well, I didn’t know any better. I remember when we did Hamlet at secondary school. Hamlet was saying to Ophelia, “Doubt you, the stars ... But never doubt I love you ...” I wrote that and I gave it to my girlfriend as if it was mine .... I’m sure she was surprised. She must have thought, “How could Albert have managed to write such words?” I think this is very typical of everyone who starts writing, especially when they’re young. But with time they will find their own voices. 

Then, I just enjoyed poetry. I went to Denmark through a programme called Turn the World Upside Down – it had to do with the South having to experience the North, [and vice versa]. It was an exchange programme involving people with various skills from the South including doctors and environmentalists. I was with an elderly man called Mkhosana, who had just retired from the Bulawayo City Council. I was based at Odense Theatre. The Danish people asked me to write about them, observe them, and write about my feelings and experiences. It was a cultural shock. I had never been in a place where there were only white people, and in Odense, the third largest town in Denmark, there were less than three blacks. I was not sure what Danish people were like – you know. From the moment I dropped off the plane, and I couldn’t push that thing – is it the trolley? You have to press something to make it move. I was struggling and I was afraid of asking, because some people were just moving [with their trolleys] but not me. I took another and another but it wouldn’t move. Then someone came up to me and said ... (you know their English is not very good) something like “Mah ho. Mah ho”‚ something in Danish and I said “English, English”. Then he said, “Ya. Prass – Prass”‚ so I understood I had to press something to make the trolley go. So the experience started straight from the airport. Next, on my way to town, I saw whites doing manual labour – I couldn’t believe it. I had lived in a country (Rhodesia), where I had never seen a white person doing manual labour. 

Generally they are shy, the Danes, and I did not know if they were racist or not. It was difficult for me. But eventually they said, “Look, you have to write straight away, otherwise you’ll get used to this place and become part of us. So just write what you see and think.” I wrote poetry based on Danish people and that they are not used to having blacks around in that part of the country. 

I remember I was invited by Mike (the press officer at the theatre) and his wife for dinner; their kid, Emma, was so scared of me, but slowly she crept up and started rubbing me ... she had never seen a black person before, let alone touch him. I experienced quite a number of funny things like that, but when I got used to the place, I found the people very pleasant. I went around schools doing my poetry and story-telling as well as relating my experiences. Some of these included coming across gay people for the first time, and trying to write about them. I was so afraid and sometimes very defensive. But, in the end, I made a lot of friends. We were filmed, and the films were shown on national television, and I was shown reading some poetry about Danish people. They were shy about it but they are the ones who had asked me to write about them. And my poems were published in a number of magazines. Finally, I was quite a name in Denmark. 

While I was away, I also became very popular at home. I kept in touch with the National Arts Council and once a workmate wrote to me saying, “When you said you were recording, we never thought that you were serious. Now you have become so popular. You don’t know how popular you are.” I was popular with ordinary people because of the song Senzeni Na, which basically means, what crime have we committed? Then in February 1997, I quit the NAC. I couldn’t handle the pressure any more because I was now performing a lot, and with musicians. I received financing from HIVOS, a Dutch humanitarian organization and I had a friend from Holland called Deneke Deelman who frequently joined me in Zimbabwe playing a saxophone. We are still good friends and sometimes she joins the group on our international tours. I worked with little ones, especially children in schools, and that gave birth to a number of groups, including IYASA, Sandra Ndebele and so on. I began to travel. Holland, three times. Sweden, Switzerland, Hawaii, South Africa, Botswana, the UK, Sicily. I think I am a real Zimbabwean ambassador. 

But really I’m bored of politics. I am not interested in them. I feel that I’m socially inclined. I love my people, the people of Zimbabwe. You know? Ordinary people. I meet them a lot, they talk to me, in Matabeleland, in Mashonaland, all over. I meet them and they talk to me very passionately about my poetry – especially women. They like my poems, and I can sell them. I have become a good businessman, a good promoter. 

Now, I have a very good man called Crispin Thomas, and his wife, Jenni. They are based in England at Stroud and have been very supportive. He is the editor of Football Poets, and he works closely with Chelsea Football Club, he is a Chelsea fan. He managed to hook me up with Chelsea Football Club and the Westminster Library and Archives ... they asked me to conduct workshops with children. You know, England, especially London, is full of foreigners ... South Africans, Zimbabweans, Zambians, Congolese, Nigerians, Asians, Chinese .... and the ordinary people there sometimes feel they are being raided ... so there is a need for workshops against racism.

POETRY and other issues  

IS Now let’s talk a little bit about your poetry, and some of the issues around it. As you say, you are a very good self-publicist. 

A I hope so. 

IS And you’ve got a very warm, engaging, humorous personality. Do you think this helps you with your poetry because you are a very accessible person, a good communicator ... 

A I think this is a very difficult one, because you are touching on issues of modesty. I am not sure, but I think you’re right – some of these things have to do with personality. That’s why I was head boy at every school I went to and ended up being sub-warden at the university during Arthur Mutambara’s period as SCR president. I am, myself, a person who is accessible. I have, I suppose, elements of being kind as well, and of wanting to acknowledge people in life who contribute to me being what I am, because I believe that art itself is a very collaborative, collective exercise that you can’t achieve on your own. I write on my own but I share quite a lot, and that has given me the impetus to write more. If you just keep everything to yourself, it becomes a bit difficult, even cumbersome. You have to let it out. So I try and let my feelings and thoughts out to my friends, to the people around me. Actually, apparently, I don’t have many friends. I have, rather, a few selected friends, and my wife. Life would be very difficult without her. On the other hand, I’m almost always at home in the pub. People talk to me everywhere I go and I’m receptive. I love being receptive. It is ordinary people who can relate to me. 

IS Your poetry is often very simply written, using simple language, rhythm, thyme and repetition, and you articulate people’s concerns, so that in a sense you reflect their own anxieties and preoccupations back at them. Would you say that was an element of your success or popularity? For example, in ‘My Daughter’‚ you take a particular concern or worry, one that many parents share, and you articulate it in a simple but rhythmic way with which they can identify. 

A Yes. I would say that I was very lucky to get formal education, because there are two elements to myself. There is the traditional me, and there is someone in me who has gone through some formal, modest, education. That has helped me through. There was a time when I used to write very complicated poetry, which I sometimes could not understand myself. I know, I sent you some work, when I was at university ... Then, I felt that publishers were not being fair. I wrote and wrote ... later, I destroyed most of it. Now I think I should have kept it, to look back at. Sometimes I used big words. Sometimes I would seek the assistance of a dictionary. I hardly ever touch one now. My language, in Ndebele or English, is very much the simplest. It is the simple words that I now love. I have developed into acknowledging the colour of a simple word. Initially I tried to do some very difficult (I don’t know whether to call it difficult) but very tough talking, tough words, meaningless to people, because I was performing for them. They would look at me, surprised, baffled rather than understanding. They would think, “Eh! Eh! this man is very educated.” But eventually I developed into the kind of person who takes just simple words, the people’s words, and I would arrange them to mean something. In Ndebele, of course, I can use clicks where necessary:
Sizoba nqoba, sibaqhobe, sibaqoqode, sibaqhiye babe ngamanina Sizoba chaya, sibachithe, sibachole, sibacuce, sibacacade Sizoba xaba, sibaxexebule, sibaxukuxe, sibavoxe. 

This poem is dedicated to my football team, the oldest in the country, Highlanders, Bosso, Tshilamoya, Ibossolona, ekaMatshobana. Someone once tried and failed to translate that poem. But what I was saying has meaning. People in Matabeleland or in KwaZulu Natal, or Swaziland understand what I mean. When you go to that area, they understand. So I think mingling with people played a big role in the development of my poetry. 

I believe that performed poetry should be accessible. I do not perform for academics who spend lonely hours scrutinising words. I perform for the larger public who enjoy hearing their own words used rhythmically to create fresh meaning. With performed poetry, you have to be careful especially if you want to make money out of it. You may end up without an audience if you do not give them what they understand. Poetry, anyway, always has a limited listenership. I perform to be enjoyed rather than studied. This not to say that intellectuals do not enjoy my poetry, some appreciate what I am trying to do. They find my approach refreshing: blowing life into dead words, and giving them new meaning. Poetry does not sell unless it is performed. You find it difficult to sell books of poetry. I find it easy to sell my work. 

The problem with some of us, especially musicians, who grew up in a township, when they get a lot of money – money counts a lot – they don’t go out to the people any more. They live in very guarded places with dogs and durawalls, electric fences and razor wire, and their lives also get locked in that kind of situation. But I go out where I like. Recently, I went to the countryside for a party for my aunt, my father’s elder sister. She’s in her late nineties. We slaughtered a cow, a few goats, chickens and had traditional brew, and we all had fun over the whole weekend. Where there were no lights we used to bring a generator, we performed – mixed up with people in the countryside, the elderly and the young. In April 2005, just before I left for Europe, for our traditional annual tour, we had a huge, huge party and we were dancing the whole weekend for my maternal grandmother who was turning 107 years old, unfortunately she later passed away in December 2005. It is this feeling, this getting to the people that works with me. The people I don’t much like are politicians. Generally for some reason I feel they don’t usually tell the truth to people ... But some are better liars than others, you know. 

IS So we can agree that essentially your poetry is something to do with the dynamic between your audience and yourself? 

A Yes. 

IS You would say that your poetry isn’t actually even fixed in terms of a line on a page? 

A Yes. 

IS That you will change that line according to the audience ... 

A Yes. Yes. Indeed, sometimes, when I’m on stage, I may quite easily change a line when I get to an audience; if I want to perform a certain poem, I may find myself right on stage changing certain lines. I may twist them around while I’m on stage performing, to suit that particular audience. Perhaps, I discover these are drunken people. You know, if I am performing in a bar. People in a bar love certain things, right? Linguistically speaking. So I change words around quite a lot. What has been fine in schools, in a church, at a social gathering is quite different in a bar. So I change the poem quite a lot. There are phrases and terms I find myself omitting when I perform for children. 

IS And would you say that the majority of your poetry within Zimbabwe is in Ndebele or in Shona? 

A Within Zimbabwe? Very funny – ah, very, very, very funny. There is a way in which I have developed to be closer to English than to Ndebele. I sometimes struggle with Ndebele in live interviews, on radio or television. I don’t understand why. But I suppose I have lived in Mashonaland for eighteen years now, and here they don’t speak Ndebele. So most of the time I converse, in English, which is a sad development as kids look up to me for linguistic perfection. However, I have not lost the language [Ndebele]. But somehow still I feel I can express myself better in English – it’s my second language by the way. But when I perform around, I would normally perform in English. But when I’m in Matabeleland I find myself switching over to Ndebele. For instance, there is a version of ‘My Daughter'‚ in Ndebele. It’s funnier in Ndebele than in English. My Shona is not very good, I must confess, and this is because, somehow everyone always speaks to me in English. 

IS Maybe you can let us have that for the web-page? 

A I don’t know where it is. I don’t know where it is any more. 

IS So, would you agree with me if I said, you are a performer first, a communicator second and a poet third, and somehow you blend all those three roles together but actually performance and communication are almost as important as your poetry, if not more so. 

A Yes. Yes. I agree with you. I didn’t realise ... but I agree with you. I didn’t realise it before but I ... yes, I do agree with you. 

IS I mean, you take an idea and you put it into a simple poetic form which may just mean shorter lines, a strong rhythm and some alliteration. ”

A Yes. Yes. Yes. 

IS – and then you play with that idea according to the audience that you are with? 

A Yes. And also, I love playing around with people’s feelings. It is very easy with me, in poetry. Interestingly, most of my work comes from the corporate world. I have been ... what do you call it, when people commission you to write about a product? Say, Coca-Cola or ZIMRA (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority), Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, First Mutual, Old Mutual. Lever Brothers turning into Unilever, and so on and so on. Just recently I have done something for the Preferential Trade Area Bank, which is an African bank, for ZimBank and so on. I also get a lot of invitations from the corporate world, to write for them. It becomes expensive. I tell them, “Look, if you ask Albert to come and perform his ordinary poetry at your function, no problem. But if you ask me to write about a window, I have to write in a way that no one else has ever written about a ‘window’.” They are just amazed. That is painful because most of the time you are uninspired. It is very difficult to be inspired if you are being sponsored to write about a window. But the corporate world gives me a lot of work. And I tell them, “Look, I will charge you this much ...”

IS This brings me to my next question. It’s an ongoing question that you and I have been debating it for – how many years now? At least 20, I think. This question of assuming the role of an mbongi and dressing up in feathers and grass skirts (that are actually often made of nylon). In particular situations and in the traditional context, this seems very appropriate. But, as you know, I have a problem with this sort of dressing up when you go to the West, or perform for western audiences. What worries me is the costume seems to suggest a cliché, a stereotype. It allows you to pander to a clichéd, stereotypical view of the ‘primitive’ African man. Because your audience doesn’t really understand the tradition, the context in which a poem at a beer drink, a funeral or a wedding, a particular performance might take place. Dressing up still troubles me. I am uneasy with it. So, for the record, I would just like to hear your views (again). 

A Yes. I understand your point and to a large extent I agree with you. This stereotypical act, really sometimes I don’t like putting this on. But you find people are just pushing you into it, at some functions, both locally and abroad. I remember some school was really angry because we didn’t want to play this role. We said, ‘But this is merely a workshop. We don’t need to dress up.’ But they wanted us to. Yes. I feel uneasy sometimes, especially when I am performing modern English poetry. When I am performing Ndebele or Zulu traditional poetry I find myself very comfortable; it gives me all the inspiration I need and I find myself in that frozen world in the past. I find myself frozen somewhere with Shaka Zulu, Mzilikazi, Lobengula. Wearing traditional dress gives me all the inspiration. However, I have often felt that I should actually categorise my presentation, have a specific period or session, where you are in your skins and you are doing traditional stuff, both locally and abroad. But it’s the dilemma I have. Sometimes it does give people a wrong impression. I mean, you may find kids coming up to you and saying “Do you live in a town? Do you have houses in Africa?” So you start explaining and explaining and explaining. Your point is still very valid. When we go to a school workshop, the first question is, “If I say ‘Africa’, what comes to your mind?” The reply is always something like “Elephant. Leopard.” I say, “OK, enough of animals. What if I say Zimbabwe?” Usually they say more or less the same thing, or they say “Cricket.” Sometimes it’s a bit weird. Sometimes if my skins are actually made of plastic, and they want to touch or feel them, you can’t really explain. I usually just say, “Look, I respect animal rights.” I feel a lot more comfortable if I am in my own ordinary traditional attire. I just try to remind people of what we used to be like. But sometimes I feel very awkward.
 
IS In addition, of course, traditional performances deracinated from a particular context do tend to become clichéd. That was my first point. The second that particular dances done, for example, at a funeral, they have an important place but take that dance and put it in a stadium full of tourists and it ... 

A It loses meaning. 

IS It loses all meaning except that it’s black people dancing in feathers. So that’s my first worry. The second is the young women. In reality we live in a rather chauvinist society, women often struggle to be heard and to be treated as equals. Of course, in many respects, women in Zimbabwe have always been strong, they are often the ones who hold a family together, keep it going, but at least in this century, they have also been repressed. In one or another way, they are often seen as second-class citizens. So, I find it very uncomfortable when a band, traditional or otherwise, has several nubile young girls wearing very short skirts, simply wiggling their bottoms, and often before a largely male audience. I feel very uncomfortable, and again I would just like your comment. I’m not saying I’m right, no, not at all, I am just saying it gives me great discomfort. 

A Yes, I think it also has to do with the question of the economy. Lately, there are lots of dance groups, some of them all female, and being managed by females, and they do just the same. I have been uncomfortable. I have the same feeling. Most women are used merely as dance girls, dance tools if you like. The men are in the limelight. But also, women love to dance. When girls are there just to satisfy men, I also feel uncomfortable with that. But if you take a very serious look at our show, it’s the women who actually choose what they want to wear, and how they want to dance. Nowadays, looking around, I see a lot of obscene dances. Go to any club and there has to be a dance group and it’s often all female. When you talk to them they will tell you it is better to be engaged in some form of business, than to go to the Avenues prostituting. Yes. So I think this trend also has to do with the economy. People are battling to survive, and women can make a living dancing. 

IS There’s dancing and dancing, as we know. I love to dance. Dancing is terrific. It’s a wonderful thing to do. What I am talking about now is the way that dancing can become reduced to a display put on for men. How much women can then retain control, I don’t know. 

A Me neither. Maybe it’s relative. 

IS Relative to what? I sometimes feel that we abuse the phrase ‘in our culture’. ‘In our culture‚ becomes a defence for almost anything. A man who is married may, for example, have many girlfriends, and if you raise an eyebrow, he says “It’s in our culture.” But actually, having two or three or four wives is not at all the same as having one wife and four or five or six or seven girlfriends ... 

A I do subscribe to that. 

IS We are also living through a period when in some ways Zimbabwe is quite cut off from the rest of the world. Unless you have DSTV or access to the internet, people these days have limited access now to new ideas from anywhere else. 

A Especially now that television has to have 90 per cent all Zimbabwean content. 

IS It’s very important to have Zimbabwean content, but we don’t also want to be isolated from what other people are thinking and discussing. Surely we want to be part of that debate. Isolating ourselves can lead to a kind of neo-nationalism. The phrase ‘in our culture’‚ is rarely interrogated, more often it’s just romanticized. 

A It’s just like what was it, UDI, [Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965]? We just got cut off from the rest of the world, just as we are cut off now. We could end up starved of ideas, we cannot develop beyond – I mean, I see you as my neighbour, I don’t see beyond you, and you don’t see beyond me. It becomes monotonous, television. I don’t think isolation is good for the country. However it seems ZTV is changing slowly for the better, and I wish that change really becomes a reality. 

IS You are quite right about the UDI period. People became similarly cut off. Obviously it’s an ongoing topic for debate and discussion. Nothing is cut and dried. Culture, cultures, change and evolve. It’s just that we should be aware, and participate ... Dances get re-choreographed over and over again. You hope that with each new choreography, the dance will be more stimulating, more exciting, present a fresher and more interesting version of an idea. My feeling about much of our traditional dance is ... 

A. That it is not good enough. 

IS Too often it focuses on an idea which is almost purely sexual and reductionist. It does not take or explore an idea or a tradition any further; it does not respond to new ideas; it’s not using dance as a for of meaning; it’s a way of using – 

A Women, especially ... And it’s bad. Especially among dance groups now. To be honest, some of those groups end up being prostitutes anyway as it were. I said, “No. No. No.” We have a policy at Imbongi that we have to be a decent group with decent performances and some of the members have been with me as long as twelve years, we sit down and talk. We talk. We discuss those things a lot. We, as a group, try to remain open.