Banning recently published an article about music and censorship in Zimbabwe. The article is posted by Freemuse, a journal / website that addresses music and free speech issues: http://www.freemuse.dk

Banning has visited Zimbabwe several times including an extended stay in 1997-98 doing research and performing with the great Thomas Mapfumo and his band. Click here for a short article about Banning's experiences and his take on the music scene there.

The Public Radio International program Afropop Worldwide will present a fundraising concert Monday, April 29 at the Bottom Line, 15 W4 St in NYC. Thomas Mapfumo and South Africa's Mahotella Queens headline, with guest appearances by Bonnie Raitt and legendary Zimbabwean vocalist Dorothy Masuka. Besides Afropop's own work, beneficiaries include new Zimbabwean independent radio station VOP and a fund for families of musicians in Zimbabwe who have died of AIDS.

For information about this concert, more on Banning and Zimbabwe and African music and culture in general, visit the Afropop site: http://www.afropop.org

Zimbabwean singer Oliver Mtukudzi will be at Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette St near Astor Place on Monday and Tuesday April 22-23 - and he'll be appearing on Late Night with David Letterman on April 22! For info: http://www.joespub.com/.

Further reading: Turino, Thomas: Nationalists, Cosmopolitans, and Popular Music in Zimbabwe, a great new book from the University of Chicago Press, http://www.press.uchicago.edu.