ABOUT VIOLET BARBARA KAFULA, THE MOTHER OF ZAMBIAN MUSIC

The God Mother of Zambian Music Violet Barbara Kafula was born in Mufulira in the early 1950s. Her Father played in a band called the Black Voice quartet and her mother sang as well.

It was in primary school that teacher encouraged her to sing and told her she had a beautiful voice. She is quoted as saying “Every time I went, I told my mum that I was going to play netball but I would go to where the band was.

I started rehearsing and singing and my mum didn’t know about it until one particular occasion when she knocked off from work. As she was passing the club, she recognised my voice. She gave herself away because she came in shouting, “She should not be singing! She’s just a young girl! She’ll never be married! She’ll never finish school!” Somebody warned me and I ran like nobody’s business, out the window of course and went home.”

After leaving National service in 1971 she joined Mwaiseni stores in Lusaka. She started hanging out with a group called Born free and used to sell tickets for them. She would tell them that she could sing but they never believed her until they merged with Crosstown traffic to form the Crossbones (This band later became Amayenge.)

Nicky Mwanza gave her a chance and she started off by performing Miriam Makeba songs. When President Kaunda declared that radio should play mostly Zambian music she was given a chance to record in a studio and that is when she recorded two songs namely “Mweba Lume Bandi” and “Say That You Love Me.” She is quoted as saying “I remember when we were recording I was so embarrassed but the engineer, Nikki Ashley, encouraged me and said that the song was going to be a hit.

Nikki and Graham Skinner at dB Studios said we should produce “Mweba Lume Bandi” first because the song would sell the album later on and in two weeks, it sold about 14 000 copies.”
There was a time when she once performed at the University of Zambia when the students who were studying Leninism and Marxism almost attacked her for singing Malcolm X but the band came to her rescue and she made it out unscathed.

Another time her song Mweba lume bandi was playing in a jukebox and someone recognised her as the singer and she was almost mobbed by a crowd but once again she was saved by the owner of the bar who hid her behind a counter. Her mother kept on saying “I told you this is not the line to go.”

She loved being a part of the Crossbones and says being the only female they never looked at her as just some girl but as one of them. When the Witch came to Lusaka from the Copperbelt they lived with Violet and the two groups toured together; occasionally forming the Crosswitch.

Violet also performed as a cabaret artist with bands like the Big Gold Six, Los Comorados, Distro Kuomboka, Five Revolutions and the Real Sounds Band. She worked as office manager at Mwaiseni stores and also served as the general secretary for the Zambian Association of Musicians.

She was the recipient of the Chairman’s Award at the Ngoma Awards in 2001. She once toured Botswana with the Witch Band and shared a stage with Percy Sledge. She passed away on 7th August 2018 after a long battle with cancer.

MusicAppreciation

SOURCE: Zone Fam