015: Out of Africa, by Biggie Tembo

Biggie Tembo (Zimbabwe)
Out of Africa (1991)
8 tracks, 41 minutes
(I couldn’t find anywhere to listen to the full album online, but you can hear the opening track ‘Punza’ on YouTube, here, and you can buy the CD second-hand on Discogs, here. Alternatively, hit me up, and we'll sort something out.)

When people ask, ‘Tupac or Biggie?’ I know my answer – Biggie Tembo every time. Ahh! See what I did there? Haha I am so funny.

Biggie Tembo was already fairly well known in the UK as the frontman and lead singer of the Zimbabwean jit band The Bhundu Boys, who were championed by both John Peel and Andy Kershaw and who, at the height of their fame, were performing with Madonna at Wembley Stadium. By the 1990s, though, Biggie had left the Bhundu Boys acrimoniously, and Out of Africa was his attempt to stay in the spotlight.

The album was his first solo effort, and it’s not a masterpiece, by any stretch. But it was the sound of many of my childhood summers, and therefore objectively good and I won’t hear otherwise. Although he skewed it a bit for modern UK-based audiences, Biggie kept mainly to the script of the jit music he helped to create: the potent mix of sungura dance music (itself a style with influences from Cuba via the Congo and Kenya), jive and rock'n'roll from the US and traditional mbira thumb-piano music adapted for twinkling electric guitars.

Some bits of the album have aged badly, but in a rather endearing way. The synths especially – and that’s probably why they’re one of my favourite bits of the album: completely untamed use of the pitch-slider and occasional timbres that sound straight out of the Tron soundtrack. Bonkers and brilliant. The whole album is all very cheesy, but cheese is tasty, so whatever.

The critics weren’t kind and the record sold poorly, and Biggie slipped into a deep depression that ended up killing him in 1995. As recorded in music history, Out of Africa is probably regarded as the point where Biggie’s turn of fortune became obvious, but I do urge you (if at all possible) to revisit this album and approach it for what it is: a fun, sunny album that’s a bit naff but ultimately charming and mostly undeserving of the negativity it has been burdened with in the past.