Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited perform. Live simulcast from The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy and WOOC-LP (105.3-FM). celebration of the first ten years of The Sanctuary for Independent Media featuring Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited, one of the world's most fearless dance bands.

Thomas Mapfumo has been the musical voice of protest in Zimbabwe and all of southern Africa for nearly half a century.

Mapfumo's gruff baritone voice is an instrument as lyrical or as fierce as he wants it to be. It's a voice that can't be doubted. His singing/chanting cries of protest are backed up by music that can only be heard as richly joyful. The complex layers of double and triple rhythm, expressed in melodic patterns based on the sound of the mbira (thumb piano), are ancestral, as is Mapfumo's cascade-of-words delivery.

There is a kind of 'disconnect' between the anguish often expressed in Mapfumo's words and the exuberance of his music, but that disconnect is ours, not his. Mapfumo is a man of joy in a world of sorrow.

For more information, follow the link: http://www.mediasanctuary.org/mapfumo