Rukuvhute: Zivanai Masango & Friends

“Rukuvhute” is the Shona word for “umbilical cord,” but it carries much more weight than the anatomical association would suggest. In Zimbabwe, a newborn's rukuvhute is buried at the family homestead, functioning as a powerful symbol of one's rootedness to home, ancestral land, and identity. It’s a shorthand of expressing where you truly belong.

Zivanai Masango brings this symbolism to life in his second artist residency with the Cultural Caravan. This concert will feature the traditional hand drumming that Zivanai learned in junior school; the horn music of the Salvation Army and the way those idioms were transformed into Chimurenga protest music by Thomas Mapfumo, Zimbabwe’s foremost musical revolutionary and Zivanai’s mentor; and finally the joyful blend of traditional mbira, electric instruments, and Afrojazz that has become Zivanai’s signature and tethered him to his homeland while living abroad.

Joined by some of the world’s foremost practitioners of Zimbabwean music, Zivanai…