On the tracks of Fany Mpfumo and Marrabenta: daily life, music and nationalisms in the suburbs of Mozambican capital (1950-1980)

Abstract

In a cheerful way, the male singer Fany Mpfumo, which was also a Mozambican migrant worker in the South African mines, echoed through the radio between the 1950s and 1980s. Growing up in the suburbs of Lourenço Marques - now Maputo, Mozambique's capital, he was elected "king of radio", in 1963, but died poor, in 1987. Today he is esteemed as one of the parents of what is considered the Mozambican national musical rhythm: the Marrabenta. Obtaining necessary documentation for the post-doctoral research financed by FAPESP, with the title "Nyonxani, tikweni": Music, Colonialism and Nation in Mozambique (1950-1980) and which has as objects the life of Fany Mpfumo and the process of Marrabenta's to become a national rhythm, depends crucially on the realization of researches in archives that hold historical documentation on the period between the struggles against Portuguese colonialism, the independence of Mozambique and the subsequent decade. In this sense, the project aims to present and justify the granting of the Bolsa de Estágio e Pesquisa no Exterior (BEPE) for the purpose of carrying out field work in archives located primarily in Lisbon, such as the National Library of Portugal (BNP) and the National Archive Tower of Tombo, but also in Maputo, such as the Cultural Patrimony Archive / Institute for Sociocultural Research of Mozambique (ARPAC).