Nyonxani, tikweni: music, colonialism and nation in Mozambique (1950-1980)

Abstract

Based on the life of the Mozambican migrant worker in the South African mines, composer and singer, Fany Mpfumo, this research intends to understand the processes and the disputes during the construction of a national identity of Mozambique, focus on the acting of common people, especially in the leisure spaces of the suburbs of the city of Lourenço Marques / Maputo, between the decades of 1950 and 1980. The daily experiences of individuals like Fany Mpfumo, as well as the dissemination of his songs, will be understood as a window to study the conflicts for the hearts and minds of the popular native groups perpetrated by the Portuguese through the psychosocial tools engendered by colonial repression, against the independence ideas and movements on Mozambican soil. After 1975, with the victory of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO) and the official adoption of a Marxist-Socialist project for the nation, following the steps of Fany Mpfumo will be understood as a possibility to continue analyze the experiences of popular urban classes after the independence. Those, that had been fiercely contested to join the cause of independence, ended up being repressed or ostracized by the new Mozambican state, especially when they did not fully conform to the national ideal of the "new man." Study the songs and the life of mans like Fany Mpfumo during the 1950s and 1980s is a way of getting closer to the everyday experiences faced by the "ordinary men" during this period of intense transformation.