This week’s featured free music listerning is Oliver Mtukudzi’s Bvuma

Oliver Mtukudzi is the best-selling artist in Zimbabwe. Lovingly called “Tuku” for short, Oliver began recording in the mid-1970s as a member of Wagon Wheels, a band that also featured Thomas Mapfumo. After Wagon Wheels rolled to fame in Southern Africa, Tuku formed Black Spirits, the band that has backed him throughout his career.

With his soul-inflected Tuku style, singer/songwriter/guitarist Oliver Mtukudzi alone rivals Thomas Mapfumo for the mantle of Zimbabwe pop’s spiritual father. Mtukudzi recorded his first hits in the late `70s.

Though it includes elements of Shona and other Zimbabwean traditional music, Mtukudzi’s sound also draws heavily on South African township pop and classic R&B. Mtukudzi adores Otis Redding, above all, but his own husky, mellifluous voice sounds closer to Jamaica’s Toots Hibbert.

Claiming no overriding stylistic model, Mtukudzi believes in the interrelatedness of all African music, “from Cape to Cairo.” Just the same, Oliver’s winning personality pervades his sound, rendering the Tuku style instantly recognizable. Mtukudzi always packs in a dance crowd at his frequent shows in Harare’s hotel/club scene. His rollicking songs and long-legged dance moves go down well, but Mtukudzi says it’s his message, not the beat that sells the songs.

Acting as a kind of national conscience, Mtukudzi concentrates on family stories, sensitively exploring the social issues people face in their daily lives, including now problems surrounding AIDS and the premature deaths of adults in a family.