Yesteryear popular sungura musician and mentor Robson Kaitano has died.
He died on Sunday aged 69, after a long battle with cancer.
Zimbabwe Music Rights Association (ZIMURA) chairman Albert Nyathi confirmed Kaitano’s death, saying he will be buried today in Goromonzi.
“As ZIMURA, we are helping with the burial policy arrangements and he will be buried in Goromonzi tomorrow (today),” he said.
“Kaitano was helped by the First Lady. When he got sick in Goromonzi, I went and spoke to the First Lady and she helped a lot. She brought him to Harare and rented a house for him.”
First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa, through her Angel of Hope Foundation, ensured that Kaitano was admitted to Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals for treatment.
Prior to the First Lady’s intervention, the singer could neither walk nor rise from his bed.
The mother of the nation also got him accommodation in Harare where she paid bills and rentals through Angel of Hope Foundation, for a year.
She also provided him with blankets, food, toiletries and other necessities.
Kaitano’s health woes started in 2017 and no one had come to his rescue since then, until the First Lady heard of his plight in 2021.
Nyathi described Kaitano as a fun loving man who had people at heart and who used to fill up venues when performing during his heyday.
Kaitano was popular in the late 1970s and after independence with his hit songs such as “Deredzai Pfuma Vatezvara”, “Tambai Kongonya”, “Kuseni Seni” and “Hondo Yakarwiwa Kare”.
His song “Tambai Kongonya”, which he performed with The Hard Spirits Crew was particularly popular as it celebrated the coming of Zimbabwe’s independence.
It was a feel joy song that captured the celebratory spirit that engulfed the country at independence, with people dancing and ululating at the thought that they were now liberated.
Kongonya was a dance popularised by liberation war fighters and Kaitano was encouraging people to get down and boogie for independence.
The song went:
Vana mai, tambai tambai kongonya
Vana baba, tambai tambai kongonya
Nhasi zvapera, tambai tambai kongonya
Tave ne mufaro, tambai tambai kongonya
Pese pese, tambai tambai kongonya
Kaitano, together with renowned yesteryear sungura musician, Shepherd Chinyani, formed the Green Mangoes Band, but when it disbanded, he formed his own The Hard Spirits Crew.
He made headlines in the 1980s when he revealed that he mentored the likes of Nicholas Zakaria, now renowned as the “Senior Lecturer” in sungura music, and several other sungura musicians like Chinyani.
He said he met Zakaria at a farm in Mazowe and taught the veteran artiste how to play the lead guitar.
“We were at Beregon Estate in Mazowe around 1977. We used to perform at Karam Bottle Store. Zakaria used to come to Karam with his bicycle selling sugarcane from a nearby farm.
“He was so eager to learn the guitar and he made his own banjo before he approached me to teach him. I taught him and we played alongside the late Smart Chareka,” Kaitano once said in an interview.
Chinyani confirmed in another published interview that Kaitano indeed mentored Zakaria and him, describing the musician as one of the pioneers of sungura music in Zimbabwe.
“He is my senior in this game and he should be honoured for that. Kaitano, Zakaria and I did a lot in shaping this genre,” he said.
