Jinxed: the curse of the Bhundu Boys - Part 2

Zimbabwean group first flew into Britain 20 years ago, and became stars overnight, world music pioneers who supported Madonna. But their fall was equally dizzying - as tragedy wiped out the band. Founder and survivor Rise Kagonga tells a story of optimism and despair to Graeme Thomson.

continued from yesterday...

There were also problems with Tembo who, claims Kagona, wanted more of his own songs on albums and started talking about a solo career. According to Veitch, Tembo 'fell for all the trappings of fame. He was ripe for it'. Psychologically, he began to disintegrate. 'He became mentally sick,' says Kagona. 'We'd say, "Biggie, calm down, you're messing your mind." It started affecting the band. I didn't used to quarrel a lot, I used to use my hands.'

At Harare airport matters spilled decisively into violence, and the Bhundu Boys became four. They limped on without Biggie, but their moment was over. In the Nineties they released three patchy albums with a series of revised line-ups, the personnel changes enforced by cruel necessity. Between 1991 and 1993, David Mankaba, the original bassist; his replacement, Shepherd Munyama; and keyboard player Shakespeare Kangwena all died from Aids-related diseases. During the same period almost 40 per cent of Zimbabwe's population was diagnosed HIV-positive as the continent of Africa plunged headlong into an HIV/Aids crisis. That was not all. Tembo committed suicide in July 1995, hanging himself in a Harare asylum after years of rootlessness and increasingly unhinged behaviour.

His band reduced to rubble, Kagona patched things up as best he could. He spent time in London and Zimbabwe, but most of the Bhundu Boys' touring commitments were now in Scotland. When Gordon Muir moved to the village of Kirkliston, just west of Edinburgh, Kagona and the band - Kenny Chitsvatsva was now the only other original member - came as well.

They lodged with villagers, not having the resources to do anything else. Entirely broke and recording sporadically for an ill-advised 'groove-based' album, the Bhundu Boys finally called it quits as the millennium dawned. 'We were playing to backing tapes, which we didn't like,' says Kagona. 'We're a live band, we make our living on the road. The guys needed something in their pockets, they got frustrated and left.' Kagona believes that Chitsvatsva is now driving a mini-cab in London. 'He went to find another job. I think he's still there, but I haven't talked to him for a long time. I'm sure he hasn't gone back home because the situation there isn't good.' Washington Kavhai, the last in a long line of doomed bassists, is currently in jail in Preston for assault. Kagona has not maintained contact.

The all-too-literal death of the Bhundu Boys would be a tragedy in any context, but it stings all the more because their music was so replete with the promise and joy of being alive. Kagona, now 44, is a father of three, but his smooth, youthful face doesn't betray either his age or his travails. Nevertheless, he is a man who has spent the past few years searching for a way to get his derailed life back on track. I first met him in the summer of 2005, and in the ensuing 12 months have spent time with him on buses, in cafes, in rehearsal rooms and at gigs. Though always warm and friendly, he's a difficult man to get close to. Understandably, he sometimes seems a little detached, lost in his thoughts.

Born the son of a displaced Malawian tribal chief, there remains something almost regal in his demeanour. Deeply religious, he has never drunk alcohol, never smoked, never taken drugs - although women, he suggests, have often been a weakness. When we first met, Kagona was emerging from a period of intense frustration. Following the disintegration of the band he returned to Zimbabwe to visit his ill father. He had paid a deposit on some land and was hoping to farm.

'That's what I wanted, something my children, relatives and friends would be involved in,' he said. 'Two weeks after I came back here I heard that the comrades [Mugabe's violent henchmen] went onto my land and chased everyone off. My wife ran away. Everything just went to hell.' He hasn't returned to Zimbabwe since. His marriage to Barbra is over and he doesn't see his children. 'The young one used to come in school holidays, but hasn't come for years now. I speak to them all the time on the telephone. They are living and they are well. They have got a roof over their top.'

He was, it seemed, stuck. His wrangles with his manager, Gordon Muir, were also coming to a head. Accusations and counter-accusations flew back and forth, and tensions that had simmered for many years finally boiled over. Kagona wondered what had happened to the money from the house bought in London, sold years previously for, he was told, no profit. He had received £5 for his bed linen from the sale, a rather modest return for his share of an £80,000 investment. He was not playing any shows and he wasn't earning a living.

He had discovered that his meagre royalty cheques were being poured into the Bhundu Boys album he and Muir had been working on since the late Nineties, a poor piece of work which featured Kagona singing largely in English. He had finally decided to block its release. Meanwhile, he was effectively living on charity, lodging for free in Kirkliston with friends, picking up cheap chicken legs at the supermarket on a Sunday evening. He got most of his clothes from the Cancer Research shop where he occasionally worked as a volunteer. He had neither the money nor the inclination to return to Zimbabwe, but tried to send the odd pound or two back to his family.

He wasn't bitter, but he was full of regret at the way things had played out. 'I feel sorry for the children of my late colleagues who have no roof over their top right now,' he said. He was also angry, believing that the band had 'lived on promises' and were 'taken advantage of.' He seemed to view the story of the Bhundu Boys as the inevitable fate of a naive African band given bad advice and exploited to death by the white west, rather than a particularly dramatic version of the oldest tale in the music industry, writ anew year after year, regardless of ethnicity. 'We came over and the white man was the boss,' he argued. 'In a foreign land, you don't try to be so clever, you go along with what you're hearing. They knew the law. We had to abide with what we were told. At the end of the day, it reminded us of the system back home, where the white man is the head. Now I've been here some time, I don't want to be treated as if I just canoed from Africa. I have my own voice. I'm not going to stand being bullied. I've learnt a lot from the past 20 years of being in Europe. I know what is right and what is wrong. I know where to go, what to say, where to sit. And I know one other thing: I will always be seen as a third-class person, because I come from Africa.'

The good news is that, since last summer, Kagona has made steps towards wresting control of his destiny. He still lives a few hundred yards from Muir in Kirkliston, but the two no longer maintain a business or personal relationship. Muir, for his part, has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing. 'The implication seems to be that I've swindled the band over the years, which is a hideous misinterpretation,' he told me last year. 'On the house and virtually every other aspect of the Bhundus, I'm well down financially.' However, Kagona, after almost 20 years, has renewed his friendship with Doug Veitch, now working in the Borders as a woodcutter and studying part time for a PhD.

The two began playing together with the notion of creating a culture clash between Kagona's jit and Veitch's Caledonian Cajun swing, although it hasn't quite worked out like that: Veitch has been learning to speak Shona and the emphasis is firmly on performing Kagona's music, but the union has clearly rejuvenated both men. There has been a radio session for Andy Kershaw, a concert appearance with Elvis Costello, and enthusiastically received sets at the recent Tartan Heart and Summer Sundae festivals. An album of new material will be released next month, Kagona's first for almost a decade.

Although he struggles with the frustration of teaching the 'language' of jit music to the Scottish musicians who make up his touring band and concedes that, to his ears, the nuances of the music still don't sound quite right, Kagona is relieved to be back on stage. He is touched that audiences and people working at the venues remember the Bhundu Boys fondly. 'I'm happy when I play,' he says. 'For the past four years I have felt as if everything has been taken away from me.

But now I feel great and back on the road again. That's my life. It's so exciting, playing new songs and having people cheering for you.' It's all he wants. He seems entirely unimpressed by past brushes with celebrity. Supporting Madonna, for example, clearly meant very little to him. He never once mentions it. In fact, he talks little about times past, but can eventually be persuaded to recall the camaraderie between his old friends and the kind of details that really mattered to young men from Harare. 'I remember buying a 14-inch colour TV in 1987,' he laughs. 'We were the first young guys [in Zimbabwe] to buy a colour television. How privileged we were!'

Kagona doesn't yearn for those days. Despite the limousines and the money, they were hard. He simply wants to be allowed to make a living. Playing his music allows him to retain his self-respect in a business which he acknowledges has given him countless precious experiences but has also bruised him badly. 'I'm not into riches,' he says. 'I'm only alone anyway, what do I spend money for? I come from a poor country and I come from a poor background, but I should be paid what I'm worth.' He rolls the phrase around in his mouth, almost singing. 'Yes, I should be paid what I'm worth.'