Simon "Chopper" Chimbetu, one of ’s most successful and beloved local musicians died on Sunday, August 14, in Harare .  He was 50.  A veteran of Harare ’s intense nightlife for over two decades, Chimbetu saw his highs and lows.  As he died, he was emerging from controversy surrounding his backing of the government’s land-grab policy.   But his 2004 album “10 Million Pound Reward” was bringing him back into public favor in recent months.  Six years earlier, when I lived in Harare, Chimbetu’s shows were the top draw in Harare, as stylish, polished, and tuneful a take on Zimbabwe’s own brand of guitar-based rumba—sometimes called sungura—as you could find.

Chimbetu was born and raised in Makwiru, Chegutu area, Mashonaland West in 1955.  His parents were amateur musicians, and he fondly recalled his father drumming and his mother singing when he was a child.  During the liberation war he and his three brothers and four sisters lived on Dendera Farm in Mozmbique.  He returned after independence to work with a pioneering sungura band called The Marxist Brothers.  When we spoke in 2001, he seemed a little embarrassed about the name, calling it a “nickname,” and explaining that it made more sense in the afterglow of the independence struggle, which was supported by communists in the USSR and China.  Chimbetu seen here on his last Uk Tour..REST PEACE.