Prudence Katomeni Mbofana is a name that is synonymous to jazz and has been around for as long as I fell in love with jazz music in the bright and then “sunshine” city of Harare as I blossomed into a man.
I had never met her in person but I had always been connected with the music and having her on my show was something that I was looking forward to in the year 2020 as it started. As I searched around for her details, I took to Facebook, as I wrongly assumed every other artist in the country is busy with it, to book an interview. The response took a couple days into a week when she finally responded but with sad news that she can only be available in the beginning of the next year as she was swamped with her teaching, music and family.
I almost doubted the interview coming through until her manager called back and we began discussing on the feasibility of the interview. I had my obvious wish list of filling up the whole studio with her band and sampling on her new music which the manager, Noel, had alluded to. All went down the drain in the next few days as we spoke and exchanged her material for our digital marketing. January is always a bad month with schools opening up and all other band members not being available spoiled a what could have been a killer interview with one of the greatest female artists ever to grace the country. I was still hopeful though until the very last band member, a pianist, could not make it too but “something inside so strong” from Lira made me just expect a killer radio interview despite her coming into the studio solo.
Not a lot of women can take up these three things in whichever order but she has somewhat found a balance between the four boys, a husband, the music and her music teaching role. And on this day was no exception as she parked her car and left her three boys in the car and calmly made her way into the studio.
You could have sworn that we knew each other before the interview but no, I guess the music brought two souls together. My love for jazz was born from Jonathan Butler, Louis Mhlanga, Ernie Smith, Hugh Masekela, Philbert Marowa, and many other great artists in the country that made my early jazz days much much easier into what a lot of people term an acquired taste kind of genre.
The whole interview, was just like how I like my interviews, candid and fun and she made it easy for me. You could tell from the chat that she enjoys what she does and she is in her element when she speaks about jazz music.
It’s easy to see the difference in a master and a student or pretender and Prudence is the former. A certain level of understanding and love coupled with the humility as we had been accustomed to see in the former great artists like Oliver Mtukudzi and Chiwoniso Maraire embodies who Mrs Mbofana, wife to Comfort who runs a host of radio stations under the Zimpapers group including ours
When she previewed her new work, I could tell there is a jazz storm brewing up and I cannot be as excited. It seems after all the new year is moving along quite well and we just need to be alive to witness it all.
Listen in to the entire interview below and share your thoughts on your love for jazz music and how we can revive this struggling genre in the country.