Info
- Artist:: Tongai Moyo & Utakataka Express
- Album:: Naye
- Year:: 2005
- Label:: Gramma Records
Track Ratings
| # | Title | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nemumvura Mese | ★★★ |
| 2 | Gandaremvura | ★ |
| 3 | Handidi Navo | ★★ |
| 4 | Muchina Muhombe | ★ |
| 5 | Kapuka Kanonzi Rudo | ★★ |
| 6 | Mweya Wamwari |
Log
2025-05-15
★★★ really the main reason i’m listening to this is because i heard nemumvura mese on a compilation and the group refrain of naye! blew my chest wide open.
(perhaps admittedly because i can’t help but also hear it as なれ！ which is a pretty powerful command i think)
though it puts me in an interesting situation because, even if i end up liking his stuff, how would i end up obtaining it anyway? the gramma uploads seem to be incomplete, and even if he released a lot of music – in the age of digital recording no less – not much of it has made its way into the eigoken.
and like, it sounds like he was legendary in his own country! so how did none of that make it outside of that sphere?
★ gandaremvura. he seems to be partial to these drumfills that sound like everything is crumbling apart. i wonder if that, plus the chanting, is why his music apparently has a reputation of being equivalent to meathead bar anthem music.
still, the bass bouncing up and down during the drum fills by the end is interesting and fun.
★★ handidi navo. the way the choruses are used here is so good! it makes the songs feel more unifying!
★ muchina muhombe. when it cuts down to just the guitar and bass and they start bouncing!
★★ kapuka kanonzi rudo. those harmonies are sensual. i would gape for these harmonies.
i think i could like tongai moyo… if they let me.
2025-06-01
i might be slightly losing my shit here…
as for the track itself, tongai moyo seems to have an unusual approach to song structure where melodic lines arrive, get fixated on, and then leave to perhaps return later. it’s easy to vibe along with, even if it’s harder to then piece the song back together in your head, and with a lot of the songs lasting for over ten minutes i’m guessing that’s the point. to me, this means that i tend to like these songs based on whether there’s a part in them that’s worth looking forward to, and this song’s refrain of naye! that comes out of nowhere halfway through to punch you in the chest is the part that sticks in my head most.
but what really confounds me is that almost every upload of this track seems to cut off a minute before the end… even the ones uploaded by the record label! most of the streaming sites seem to only have the cut-off version; it’s listed twice on spotify and only one of the two is the correct length; it has a music video on dailymotion with some incredible green-screen work, and the music video cuts off a minute before the end! at least this youtube video i happened upon while writing this up doesn’t, though.
i can’t help but wonder how this even happened on the production side, especially since this affects the uploads for all the songs on this album. did anyone check the files on this album to make sure they uploaded correctly? and i’d have a hard time believing that they only uploaded truncated versions as a quasi-sample to encourage buying the full track, since a) 90% of the track is hardly a sample-y size, and b) i have no goddamn clue how to buy any of his work short of flying to zimbabwe and hoping for the best.