Mapfumo’s new album RISE UP (Real World Records), to be released in July 2006, is guaranteed to be banned from Zimbabwean state radio the moment it airs in Harare’s record bars and flea markets. Having music banned is an experience Mapfumo associates with the late 1970s, the twilight years of the Ian Smith regime, when Rhodesia’s cultural minders belatedly tweaked to the sly messages of rebellion couched in Mapfumo’s Shona proverbs and allegorical poetry – food for the souls of guerrilla fighters in the bush.

Strummed electric chords launch the band into a poised, relaxed groove — no rhythmic razzle-dazzle, no fiery ranting, no obvious Africanisms. Deep in the mix, one can discern the metallic plink of the iron-pronged mbira, a sound known to invite ancestor spirits to possess the living during religious ceremonies among the Shona people. Shona sacred music has long been Mapfumo’s most potent musical source, but this song sounds more like a gospel lullaby with a hint of reggae bounce, a shimmer of organ answering the singer’s gently descending vocal line.

RISE UP includes a remake of an early classic, Mukadzi Wangu (my wife). The original was raw and dangerous, featuring a spare tangle of darkly insistent guitar lines, the sound of The Blacks Unlimited before keyboards or actual mbiras. The new version is grander, cushioned in sonorous mbira lines and adorned with blankets of vocal harmony. Mapfumo often reprises old songs to demonstrate Zimbabwe’s return to struggle, its ongoing chimurenga. In this song, a man explains to his wife that he must leave the country to support their family. No changes to the lyrics were required.