Rise Kagona turns his beaming face to the sun and speaks dreamily of the longed-for day he might take his place as a chart-topping millionaire. Kagona is a founding member of the Bhundu Boys, the jit jive group from Zimbabwe that exploded on the British music scene via Hawick in the mid-1980s. The band who formed in the tin-roofed township of Highfield on the fringes of Harare went on to support Madonna at Wembley stadium. That was to be the zenith of their success. The Bhundu Boys were prevented from fulfilling their potential as a serious musical force by tragedy. Three of Kagona's former bandmates died of Aids and a fourth commited suicide.
Yet, as they prepare for their first UK tour in four years, including dates at the Edinburgh Fringe, it seems the bad fortune heaped upon the Bhundu Boys, has failed to vanquish the optimism that once sang out like a hallelujah from their hits. "We have been through a lot, and it's frustrating that I can't always get as much as I want," Kagona says. "But I think if I keep on pushing up I will get somewhere. If it wasn't for my pushing so far I wouldn't be what I am today. So I still need to push up and maybe the best results are still to come."
Optimism in the face of crushing disappointment has been the Bhundu Boys' defining characteristic since they first stepped into Gatwick Airport in 1986 to be greeted, not by the anticipated limousine, but by a rag bag of Scottish musicians and enthusiasts who had organised their ramshackle first tour. It continued to shine out of them in the heady days when, as one of Africa's biggest musical exports, they played at every right-on student function in the land. And it saw them through the Aids years, where, instead of slinking shamefaced into the background, they risked the wrath of President Robert Mugabe by headlining in a free concert to raise awareness of the disease.
The Bhundu Boys take their name from their country's freedom fighters. They were formed in the cultural explosion that followed Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. They were already successful in their native land by the time Scottish musicians Douglas Veitch and his old schoolfriend Gordon Muir, a graphic designer tired of his day job, first heard their music. Muir and Veitch thought their intense melodies and exotic rhythms would lift the spirits of 1980s Britain. Veitch applied for a grant under the Enterprise Allowance scheme - a Conservative ruse to reduce the unemployment figures - so he could release an EP of three Bhundu Boys records under his own record label. Then he and Muir hatched the plan to bring them to Britain.
"We thought everyone in Britain had money and we saw this tour as a means of buying the best instruments available," Kagona says. "When we got off the plane and saw them we couldn't believe it. The heel of Doug's shoe was worn away. To us he looked like a beggar. At first we thought they must be henchmen who had been sent to collect us. All day we were waiting for the big record producer. Finally we realised we had already met him. We felt as though we had been had."
The initial disappointment was reciprocated by Veitch and Muir who were expecting fully-fledged stars. "They stepped off the aeroplane and there was this bizarre ceremony where they handed over plastic shields and Zimbabwean flags," says Muir, who now manages the band from a village in West Lothian. "Then we asked them if they wanted to collect their instruments from the carousel. To our horror, they told us they didn't own any instruments, they just rented them. The band's first ever gig was just eight hours away. We had to beg and borrow from everyone we knew."
With every spare penny being spent on new instruments and no money for hotels, the band - then five-strong - moved in with Muir and his then girlfriend Anne, in their small house in Hawick. In a town where Muir was viewed as eccentric on the basis of his art degree, the five Zimbabweans, dressed in red sweaters courtesy of the local knitwear factory, aroused the curiosity of the locals who christened them "Muirie's darkies". "It was weird at first. The locals had only ever seen black people on the television, but we did settle into the community. We had friends come and play football and joined in the Hawick Common Riding," says Kagona.
The band continued to play at venues like Kelso racecourse, where a handful of people turned out to watch them in the rain. But then, before anybody had the chance to get truly demoralised, things began to pick up. DJs John Peel and Andy Kershaw - the champions of what was later to become known as World Music - began plugging the band at every opportunity. With political attention already focused on Zimbabwe and South Africa, interest in ethnic dance music grew. In the years that followed, the Bhundu Boys signed with multinational WEA, featured on the cover of NME, toured America, supported stars such as Eric Clapton, collaborated with Don Williams and even borrowed Joe Strummer's guitar after he turned out to be among their greatest fans.
"There were so many good times," says Kagona. "Every student ball we played at was exciting. But the best day of our lives was opening for Madonna at Wembley, looking out over all those people." On their visits home they were treated as superstars: the men who had taken Zimbabwe's traditional music to the world. They were not wild rockstars, but they admit they took advantage of some of the perks their newfound status afforded them. And one by one they fell victim to Aids. Trouble of a sexual nature had first surfaced in Hawick when two band members contracted syphilis. "I was taken aside by a doctor and asked to try to keep their behaviour under control," Muir recalls.
The symptoms of Aids first showed themselves in bassist David Mankaba. By the time he was diagnosed, he already had full-blown disease. He died just months later in Zimbabwe. His replacement in the band, Sheperd Munyama, and guitarist Shakespeare Kangwena, were struck down soon after. Kagona, who has three grown-up children, says he did not spend a lot of time worrying about his own survival, but the death of his friends did change his outlook on life. "At the beginning, all the attention was very tempting. When you ere playing music people take you as just for fun. We were like children with a new toy," he says. "But after Aids we realised we had to take care of ourselves, that the music industry was the same as any other job and that we had responsibilities."
At that time, although around 20% of the population in Zimbabwe was HIV positive, the country was in denial. "Families would not want to admit to Aids," says Kagona. "They would say demons had bewitched their son rather than acknowledge the truth." Mankaba was the first public figure in Zimbabwe to confirm he had Aids. Muir says his death had the same effect on Zimbabwe as Rock Hudson's death had on the US.
The Bhundu Boys were further fractured by internal struggles. Although Kagona was the founder of the group, its frontman was the flamboyant Biggie Tembo. As the success of the band grew, so did Tembo's ego. He harboured ambitions of a solo career and quit after one of many tempestuous arguments. But venture after venture failed and Tembo slumped into a depression. "By the time he asked us if he could come back to the band, he was mentally disturbed and we had moved on," says Kagona. "There was nothing we could do for him." Tembo hanged himself in 1995.
By then the band was also foundering musically. While proponents of World Music revelled in the rough edges of the townships, themusicians themselves, not unreasonably, yearned to achieve the sophisticated polish of Sade, and a yearly income that reflected their popularity. After signing with Warner Brothers, they wrote songs in English rather than their native Shona, and tried hip hop. The albums released under the label were criticised as too western and the band never really recovered its momentum.
Today, the remaining Bhundu Boys - Rise, Kenny Chitsvatsva and Washington Kavhai - together with relative newcomer Kuda Matimba are back after four years in Zimbabwe to promote The Shed Sessions, a compilation of 29 tracks recorded in their early days in Harare. By returning to their roots, they have rediscovered some of their old acclaim and earned themselves a welcome break from their troubled homeland where newspaper offices were recently bombed and white farmers still face the daily threat of violence, a situation Kagona abhors. "I do believe black Africans should own their own land," he says. "But in Zimbabwe we have farmers who have been doing well who owned tractors who produced food. I believe if we had encouraged them to keep on doing what they were doing, but give up what they were not using to other people, this would have been a better way of dealing with it."
Although the Bhundu Boys love their country, there is no clamour to return in the near future. But it is difficult to see where they can go when the nostalgia-fest surrounding their latest release dies down. Kagona is casting around for a way to carve out a new musical niche, his heart, as ever, set on making himself rich. "We are looking for something different, something that catches up with what people want. Sometimes people come along with something new and it quickly catches up with everyone. Within two or three days you read in the papers that they are millionaires."
But Matimba, who was still in nappies when his country gained independence, is the only member of the band with a body of work that could be plundered for a follow-up album, and it is a far cry from traditional Bhundu Boys fare. "His music is very Zimbabwean, but it is much more dark brooding soundscapes that reflect his own experiences, than the three-minute pop song," Muir says. With most of their equipment stashed in a garden shed in Harlesden and Kagona unclear as to the future direction of the band, a rise from the ashes seems unlikely. Then again, the story of the Bhundu Boys so far is so bizarre no turn of events, however improbable, should be ruled out.
The Bhundu Boys play the Gilded Balloon from Aug 3-9 and 13, 0131 226 6550; and the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen on Aug 10, 01224 642230
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