Finding Meaning in Music

Make a list of “the greatest songs ever written,” and you’re not likely to include songs like “Call Me Maybe,” even if the song is a foot-tapper. No, more likely to be included are songs like “Stairway to Heaven” and “Imagine.” Great songs endure the test of time and are never just a flavor of the week.

“A great song doesn’t attempt to be anything—it just is,” wrote Jay-Z in an article for Rolling Stone.

“When you hear a great song, you can think of where you were when you first heard it, the sounds, the smells. It takes the emotions of a moment and holds it for years to come. It transcends time. A great song has all the key elements—melody; emotion; a strong sentiment that becomes part of the lexicon; and great production.”

Oliver ‘Tuku’ Mtukudzi understands this sentiment well. He has recorded more than sixty albums in his forty-plus years as a career musician. For Mtukudzi, a native Zimbabwean, music isn’t a career—it’s part of him, and he’ll never stop making music.

“This is me,” he said. “I’m doing me; I’m not doing a career. This is who I am; I can’t retire really from myself.”

For Mtukudzi, music is many things. It’s how he expresses himself and his beliefs. It’s also how he addresses social issues such as AIDS and the “traditional” idea of African women. “Where I come from you don’t get to sing a song if you have nothing to say,” said Mtukudzi. “So every song has something to do with that man in the street, he must be able to use it in his life.”

For the past few years, music has been his therapy more than anything. His son Sam died in 2010 in a car crash, and Mtukudzi has used performances and songwriting to deal with the loss. His latest album, released last September, is called “Sarawoga,” or “left alone” in Shona.

A veteran of the music scene in Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, Oliver Mtukudzi is perhaps one of the most dedicated musicians in the world; he’s certainly one of the most inspirational and unique.

“I don’t write a setlist,” he says of his performances. “How do I know the show is going to be for me to plan? I just look for the song—if I find the first song everything falls into place, because I don’t know the mood of the day, so as I get into the mood I get the songs.”