Rikki Ililonga
Rikki Ililonga is Zambian music pioneer[1] from the 1970s and remains a big star. With his band Musi-O-Tunya he is generally credited as a key player in the creation of a music genre called Zamrock, along with Emanuel ‘Jagari’ Chanda of the band Witch. Both Ililonga and Jagari were right there at the birth of the Zamrock genre.[2]
Through crafting an astonishing range of songs, Ililonga sings in English (the constitutional language of Zambia) and local languages including Silozi, Chinyanja and Ichibemba which he speaks fluently.
Today Ililonga lives and shuttles between his adopted home in Denmark and Zambia.[2]
Political education
Ililonga would have heard imported records ranging from The Beatles, The Who, Buddy Holly and James Brown which was a direct result of his educational séjour to the US. Ililonga graduated from a political leadership course at Syracuse University in America, a course which was sponsored by UNIP (United National Independence Party). He was a member of the party and also belonged to the Zambia Youth Services ZYS, a precursor of the Zambia National Service. He abandoned what could have been a lucrative political career for music. On returning to Zambia Ililonga chose the band name Musi-O-Tunya which translates to Smoke That Thunders (the original name for Zambia's Victoria Falls) one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.[3]
Musical rise
As guitarist and singer Ililonga released music on 7" through a record label in Kenya and a defining moment for his Zamrock sound came after seeing Ghanaian band Osibisa who Ililonga says ‘were singing in their own tongue and not trying to sound like anybody else’. Ililonga had a day job but he quickly saw that he was being paid was nothing compared to the amount he would make during the weekend playing in his band, and so quit doing the same ‘mundane things’ in favour of the music career.
The band was playing in the early-to-mid 1970s ‘like most of the bands for the miners in the Taverns which were on the copper belt, eventually hotels then started employing musicians for their diners and entertainment’. With a strong musical identity the band released the LP Wings of Africa (1975) on which there's a diverse sound equally influenced by Afrobeat as it is Deep Purple. This LP’s release came at a time that Zambian radio stations, also in 1975, were mandated by Zambia's first republican elected president - Dr Kenneth Kaunda - who passed a cultural edict that 90% of the music played on national radio should be Zambian.
This unprecedented level of radio play not only gave Ililonga the idea to explore a new musical genre that was to become known as Zamrock. Additionally this brought mainstream notoriety for him in his country and propelled his band Musi-O-Tunya into having an intense yet short-lived success playing to local crowds in the landlocked modernizing nation in Southern Africa.
Later in life he has recorded an anti-HIV/AIDS LP with the first Zambian republican president - Dr Kenneth Kaunda - with whom he is close friends calling it We Shall Fight. Other aspects of his musical repertoire garnered a different kind of socio-political attention: the song Shebeen Queen was considered overtly sexual, and the track Olemekedzeka got criticized for being politically driven.
In the mid-to-late 1970s after the initial release of the first LP, now going solo, Ililonga released a geographically titled LP ‘Zambia’ featuring a blend of catchy folky Kalindula music and rock songs including Shebeen Queen, which is also easily seen as a totem sound picked-up by bands in the British indie music scene like Oasis and The Charlatans.[4]
Awards
Wins Makumbi Song Festival award, 14th April 1976 where Ililonga did a rendition of the winning song to the audience and judges before being presented the prize at the Inter-continental Hotel.[5]
Revival and cultural legacy
China's CCTV News, Faces of Africa documentary series titled ‘The Survivors of Zamrock’ featured the veteran Zamrock pioneer (2013). Also documenting Ililonga's legacy South African filmmaker Callum MacNaughton released a documentary featuring Ililonga called This is Zamrock (May 2020).[6]
References
- ↑ "Rikki Ililonga biography". Last.fm. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Limited, Bangkok Post Public Company. "Bringing' it all back home". Bangkok Post. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
- ↑ "ILILONGA CHRONICLES HIS ASSOCIATION WITH KK". Times of Zambia. 29 May 2015. Retrieved 12 Jan 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Zamrock: An Introduction to Zambia's 1970s Rich & Psychedelic Rock Scene | Open Culture". Retrieved 2021-01-12.
- ↑ "Reuters Archive Licensing". Reuters Archive Licensing. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
- ↑ "Watch a New Mini-Documentary on the Story of Zamrock". OkayAfrica. 2020-05-14. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
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