Our Kind of Spirituals, No. 13: Thomas Mapfumo and Blacks Unlimited, “Corruption”

This classic piece of Afropop from Zimbabwe — northern neighbor to South Africa — has been on my playlist all fall, and its lilting rhythm and soft-spoken vocal gained a new poignancy with the death of Nelson Mandela earlier this week.

"In the streets there’s there’s corruption / Everywhere there’s corruption / Something for something / Nothing for nothing/ Corruption … throughout the society …" So it is, and not just in southern Africa, obviously: but the corruption epitomized by Robert Mugabe is a phenomenon that Nelson Mandela somehow heroically and miraculously managed to avoid.

"Come what may / It ain’t gonna change," Mapfumo sang. That was 1989. A few months later, a little to the south, something did change.

As it happens, another African leader died this week: Tabu Ley Rochereau, a soukous bandleader, self-exiled from Zaire, who later entered Parliament in the country’s new life as Democratic Republic of Congo. His story is told briefly here.