Chimurenga magazine

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Chimurenga is a publication, of arts, culture and politics from and about Africa and its Diasporas, founded and edited by writer and DJ Ntone Edjabe. Both the title chimurenga (a Shona, Zimbabwe, word loosely translated as "liberation struggle") and the content capture the connection between African cultures and politics on the continent and beyond.

Interrogating the superficial has always been the core agenda of the publication. The various renegades are captured in a series of profiles "thinking out loud". Chimurenga shies away from the Q&A format and includes deconstructed and imagined interviews, surreal short stories and poetry and other devices that challenge strict notions of fact and fiction. Covers are equally indicative of the orientation of a journal which is at once theoretical, erotic, provocative. One cover featured the words of Strange Fruit, the song about Southern lynchings that Billie Holiday immortalised. Another featured Neo Muyanga’s portrait of Steve Bikos bruised face. The first edition showed Peter Tosh at a gig in Swaziland in the early 80s. Tosh is pointing an AK-47-shaped guitar in the direction of South Africa and chanting down Babylon.

Chimurenga has been in print since March 2002. Started as a quarterly, Chimurenga now appears approximately three times a year. The magazine has featured work by emerging as well as established voices including Njabulo Ndebele, Lesego Rampolokeng, Santu Mofokeng, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Gael Reagon, Binyavanga Wainaina, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Boubacar Boris Diop, Tanure Ojaide, Dominique Malaquais, Goddy Leye, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Mahmood Mamdani, Jorge Matine, and Greg Tate, among others.

Chimurenga orients itself not only to radical people that form its immediate target group, but also to the lay reader. It is distributed in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya, Swaziland, Botswana and Ghana. Its distribution has seen it read on campuses in Germany, the United States, Great Britain and France.

What's in the name Chimurenga?

— Y magazine

Then, the Zimbabwean nationalist struggle and the music that fuelled it. Now, the struggle to stay awake as Cronin puts it. Somebody somewhere decided to assemble the aspirations of many of the world’s sufferahs under “ah” sounding syllables: amandla; intifada; aluta; sankara; guevarra; zapatista; rasta…whateva you know…one is almost tempted to throw ‘kabila’ in there (laughs)... im saying ‘chimurenga’ toes that line. It also brings together the political and the cultural better than any slogan our struggles may have produced. When one says ‘chimurenga’, you could be reading from a Jonathan Moyo speech or talking about Thomas Mapfumo’s music.

—Ntone Edjabe

The rallying call “Who No Know Go Know” is apt & tight. Please break it down.

— Y magazine

The Chief Priest (Fela) used to throw it down in mid-song, just before giving his version of the latest world news. It’s a West African English translation of “if you don’t know you better find out”. In other words, ignorance is curable. One needs to take this with gloves - or a condom - ‘cause this is not to say Chimurenga has medicinal pretensions. We all know prevention is best…if anything Chimurenga is a communal yard where we are free to exhibit our sick heads. Escaping the torpor of post-independence in order to do this is in itself therapeutic, considering the heavy dosage of painkillers that make up the current reading diet this side of the Limpopo. And from what I hear, the other side too...

—Ntone Edjabe