Inside story of Smokey Haangala's 'Aunka Ma Kwacha’, lovingly re-issued by Séance Centre

In honour of the forthcoming Séance Centre re-issue of Smokey Haangala’s 1976 release ‘Aunka Ma Kwacha’, Matthew Stancombe took time to delve deep into the backstory of the artist, the album, and the landscape from which his unique sound emerged. With treasured insights from Smokey's brother, Swithin, the result is a fascinating and hugely informative essay that we were thrilled to include here.

Aunka Ma Kwacha

The album Aunka Ma Kwacha by Smokey Haangala was released on Teal Records, catalogue number RAK1, in Zambia in 1976. Due to this first solo album (followed later by Waunka Mooye), Smokey found nationwide fame and had a long and celebrated career as a solo artist, also playing in a number of bands, while pursuing a dual career as a writer and editor working for several national newspapers. The product of an extremely talented musician, Aunka Ma Kwacha is a unique and highly original album that although internationally, it disappeared into the sands of time leaving only a small footprint, it nonetheless became a holy grail for many a vintage African music collector. In these times when many modern dance music DJ’s and collectors are virtually (and sometimes physically) exploring previously geographically invisible musical lineages and scenes, searching for new old sounds to recontextualize and feed not only a dance floor but internet consumers of music through video sharing sites and music streaming services – Aunka Ma Kwacha is ready to again be heard played loudly and softly, an album for many moods. Outside of Zambia, Smokey Haangala remains a mysterious figure. Recent excavations of the music known as Zamrock, have focused on many of Smokey’s peers, with only a few rather more niche publications (such as the text “Legends of Zambian Music, by Leonard Koloko), providing insight into this innovative artist.

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In Zambia in 1972 President Kenneth Kaunda, himself an amateur musician favouring the guitar reacted to political uncertainty in the region by seeking to establish a strong national identity. He issued a decree that 90 per cent of music played on the radio in Zambia had to be of Zambian origin. Rather usefully the government owned the only national radio and television broadcaster, Zambia Broadcasting Services (ZBS) and its three radio channels, the General Service (English and some local programming in two languages), Home Service (local language and sounds) and the external services channel (to counter the South African propaganda broadcast channel on shortwave during the Ian Smith-led Rhodesian conflict).

The Home service played mostly traditional music recorded by the radio station as well as local folk artists, South African and Zimbabwean and East African music, including The Dark City Sisters, Miriam Makeba, Dorothy Masuka and Isaya Mwinamo of “Julieta” fame. The General service (in English language) played imported sounds popular around the world with a roster of DJs including Mateo Phiri, Manasseh Phiri and Levy Mwelwa, who were personal favourites of Swithin Haangala, brother of Smokey Haangala. “When I joined ZBS, I also found Joe Kuluneta, Mann Sichalwe, Charles Mando, Leonard Kantumoya, Fred Chunga and Timmy Mvula.” Women were also employed as DJs, in particular, Sassy Sara Mubanga who Swithin remembers enjoying listening to. The DJs tried to play the very latest sounds in their favourite genres using records from the stations’ record library or from personal collections.

Smokey Haangala

For many Zambians, most music was consumed through radio listening although there was a good record shop in Lusaka called Kingstons and records were affordable due to the local currency being “one to one” with the British pound - meaning even imported music from the UK that was played on the General service was readily available and a decent collection could be accumulated. Swithin remembers Smokey being interested in pop music and following with interest artists like Tommy Roe, Cliff Richard, and Tom Jones as well as rock bands like Deep Purple, Grand Funk, Black Sabbath, Free, Credence Clearwater Revival, Simon and Garfunkel, Bread, David Gates, the Bee Gee’s and Jimi Hendrix. Born “Edwin” Haangala, he even took the stage name “Smokey” in reference to Smokey Robinson, a favourite among other Motown artists he also followed, like the Bar-kays, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett. Kingstons also provided a meeting place and stocked pop music magazines and books where fans could read about the latest releases and see the styles and fashions popular in the UK and US. Swithin remembers local musicians acting as trendsetters, who would order their clothes through mail-order catalogues, bringing London’s style via boutique shops such as “Get Knotted” to Lusaka, although predictably mini-skirts and bell bottoms were frowned upon by elders (much like in the UK itself).

In the early days of pop music, the scene consisted of live bands performing in bars and restaurants around the cities with some mainstream prominent bands able to sell out larger venues like Lusaka’s Charter Hall for an evenings’ concert. There were also adapted venues, like the Lido drive-in Cinema and Barn Motel, Kilimanjaro, which would feature resident bands who could pull a decent crowd in afternoon shows, playing rock, pop and soul. Festivals were also organised where various bands gathered together playing their own compositions as well as covers of western songs. Later on, heading into the 1980s, and again echoing popular culture around the world, disco music became popular in Zambia and so both mobile disco setups and discotheque nightclubs sprung up across the country. Swithin remembers some of the more popular disco nightclubs in Lusaka featuring well-regarded club DJs playing records to dancefloors in venues such as Studio 22, Valentinos, Questick, Africa 2000, as well as Rasputin and Steps in Ndola, and Kitwe’s Golden Peacock. “Some of the DJs became household names famous for their trade, including Pfunk and Eddie Groove of Lusaka’s scene and Teddy Daka of Bantu Disco in Kitwe.”

Up until the early ’70s, bands like the Machine Gunners (ironically a real Army Group) and Musi-o-tunya (who released Zambia’s first commercially available LP), had formed out of an emerging music scene in the local copperbelt mining towns. Their sound was principally an interpretation of traditional rhythms using a mixture of traditional and western instruments. Over time the worldwide popularity of western rock music had infiltrated the African continent; London based Ghanaian rock group Osibisa notably toured Zambia in 1972. Local musicians opened their ears and hearts and minds to these new sounds and rock started to seep into the youth’s subconscious - a curiosity ultimately quenched by leading Zambian musicians and epitomised by the development of the Great WITCH into a fully-fledged Zam-rock monster, achieving a huge following which is unsurpassed today.

The 90% rule did not quite backfire, but also did not produce the expected results. Many young Zambians decided that this was their opportunity and set forth pursuing a musical career with hundreds of new artists emerging, drawing on ‘other’ African styles (pretty well as it happens!), and introducing yet more variety instead of strengthening a Zambian identity. More established Zamrockers kept the rock guitar solos going, influenced by bands like Jethro Tull or the Beatles, Deep Purple or the Rolling Stones, whilst also providing local language songs and creating something distinctly Zambian, yet still popular with the youth. The latter experiments of the Great WITCH trying out more Zambian sounding songs was cut short by the exit of leader Jagari from the band but still succeeded in encouraging many others to try this formula and explore their own roots, to some success.

Edwin Haakulipa Haangala wanted to make “danceable, meaningful and marketable music”. Born on 16th January 1950 to a schoolteacher, Cosmas and his mother Agnes Nangoma, one of ten other siblings, he displayed early promise performing a magnificent improvised dance routine to the amazement of his peers in his junior school. Academically bright Edwin attempted to become a catholic priest after primary school, but (thankfully) had other ideas and left fairly quickly. After junior secondary school at Mpima Seminary, he went to Munali High School for senior secondary school and after successfully passing his Cambridge examinations enrolled for an arts degree at the University of Zambia. Growing up at home within a large family, music seemed an important part of life. From an early age, Swithin notes that the record player was always on and neither Mother nor Father seemed to mind. Smokey had learned to play guitar and taught Swithin how to play, meaning that at home in the school holidays the family would jam together using whatever instruments they could find to make music. This paid off. Swithin played in a band in secondary school for fun, and then also at college and in Smokey’s band and so, since then, he has always been a part-time musician, earning extra money on weekends, though he says that it was never about money for him, and nor for Smokey, it was always just for the sake of the music and the fun of it. It was no surprise when Smokey started to play in University campus bands, such as the Unzamites and Icicles, eventually forming the X-Ray band with Bright Mfula on lead and Smokey playing bass guitar with them around 1973. They performed at venues the Pelican, Kilimanjaro and Lido Drive in Lusaka and at a show in Kabwe. Influenced by Deep Purple and Black Sabbath as well as Free/Bad Company, the Allman brothers and David Gates and Bread. When Bright Mfula abruptly left the band in 1974, Swithin was drafted in to cover bass guitar duties for a concert at Jubilee Hall while Smokey took the lead, but the band disbanded shortly after this.

Smokey failed a few courses at University but managed to re-take them and thus graduated a year later in 1971. His first job was at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, but he left soon after to join a book publishing firm as English Editor. He later joined the Times of Zambia, Zambia’s leading newspaper at the time. The job was well paid and he was thus able to put money towards buying instruments both new and old. He started to change his music, Swithin says, becoming interested in the music of a legendary local Tonga artist and guitarist Simon Haamucemba and began writing his own songs believing strongly in the idea of originality. Although one inspiration, David Gates, Swithin thinks, comes through in some of the slow songs, though with a Zambian touch, he also wrote some songs in the Bemba dialogue of the Zambian Northern province, with Happy Mulenga, a long-time friend. Smokey began his part-time solo music career recording his first single, Ndaloba. This was quickly followed by others, like Sticking, Ma Kwacha and Marry Me Merrily, all recorded at Zambia Broadcasting Services studios in Kitwe. Leonard Koloko in ‘Zambian Music Legends’ writes; “His style was unique and very original. Smokey had cleverly repackaged the sundown beat [music played after dark] from Tongaland using western instruments without draining out the traditional feel.”

Swithin remembers, “Lonrho, a company owned by Tiny Rowland brought in a record company, Teal, and signed up a number of local artists who recorded their music at Malachite Studio in Chingola, owned by the mines and then later at dB studios privately owned by Graham Skinner, a former broadcasting engineer with the Nationalized broadcasting company”. Swithin was working as a TV producer and presenter at the Kitwe studios and arranged with one of his friends, a recording technician to sneak Smokey into their studio one Sunday afternoon. It was then that the first four songs were recorded which launched his career. “Done in just one take with a rhythm composer, guitar and then solo, then re-dub and lay the second voice and the song was done”. When the tapes were wrapped they were then taken to Teal Record Company who liked the songs and proposed that Smokey record an album at Malachite studio in Chingola. Swithin says that Malachite studios were much more professional than Kitwe’s ZBS studio and had a four-track recording machine. Happy and Swithin were involved in the recording, but Happy only as a second voice and Swithin with some domestic bongo on one song, Smokey preferring to play all the instruments and complete the mix down alongside the engineer. Swithin says his brother was “very precise and professional”.

When I asked Swithin about the use of a Rhythm Composer (or drum machine) he replied: “Smokey was the first to use a rhythm composer in Zambia. It was very simple and had already programmed beats, Samba, rhumba, pop, rock and was quite rudimentary. Most of the songs he composed followed the drum composer until he later acquired a keyboard, which had an inbuilt rhythm composer. It was a trial machine and the only other person who had it at the time was Emmanuel Mulemena, another folk artist.” When discussing other potentially similar artists at the time, Swithin said: “For Smokey, since his genre was unique, there were a few solo artistes but they never really rivalled his rare talent of guitar execution with his beloved “Arafat" as he nicknamed his drum machine.”

His compositions were sometimes spontaneous and reactionary, fed by emotions and the environment, often acting as a master storyteller. Writing songs as he simply “enjoyed music” and pursuing nothing other than originality, Swithin had the following anecdote: “One of the most popular songs today in Zambia is called Mukowa Wangu and is popularly used as a ring tone. One day, I found him playing a cassette of one of his songs Kumaala. In between, the tape got stuck and started playing backwards. He was very upset and switched off the machine to correct the tape. After taking out the tape, he invited me to the bar for a beer. The next day when I came for rehearsals at the club where he had a long term contract, I found him in his room. He was playing the tape, but surprisingly still upside down. He started copying the notes that the inverted tape was making and the next day, he had the hit song”.

The record company assessed the popularity of artists and sounds though airplay and they did not want to push Smokey towards any particular sound. There was little competition as the biggest label Zambezi belonged to Teal and it only had one rival, ZMP (Zambia Music Parlour), owned by Edward Kugzwayo. Chris Editions and Goodson Records came later, but Swithin recalls them as short-lived fly-by-night operations. The album Aunka Ma Kwacha was born and, with the help of popular local Ndola artist Peter Kandenda providing the album artwork, his success was guaranteed.

The songs on Aunka Ma Kwacha are a mixture of educational, cautionary, and reflective, in both Bemba and Tonga, Lozi and Nyanja language, some espousing warnings to the youth such as an older brother asking his younger sibling to take it easy with the attention he pays to a girl and to concentrate on his studies, plenty of time for love later. Another is about a witch doctor warning his patient that others may be jealous of his success and to watch out in case of attack. There is a love song, named after his second wife, and other songs deploring the “wizards of nowadays” and asking listeners to change their ways, cast off bad habits and yearning for better times of the past. The title track refers to a common idea, that of a Sugar Daddy who is rich and tempts young girls away from their partners with paper currency (kwacha), but who has falls from grace and who can no longer even find coins (ngwee).

The album itself is truly unique. It has an overarching country style, the simple guitar and voice prevalent across most tracks sounding traditional and folk-like, telling stories but interrupted at times by fuzzy or wailing guitars, a not unwelcome sound, but warm and soothing. The songs are pretty, beautiful, even, sometimes reminding me of Bob Dylan and I wonder if “Times and Changes” wears its heart on its sleeve. However, Swithin assures me that this is not the case: “Bob Dylan was a well-known musician, but Smokey was not a fan. He loved rock, and his collection was comprised mostly of heavy metal rock at the time. He also had a soft spot for Bread, though, and Simon and Garfunkel. The Boxer, Bridge Over Troubled Waters and Mrs Robinson were among his favourites and we would play them on guitar guessing the chords endlessly. Credence Clearwater Revival was also part of the repertoire. Bob Dylan was a little too deep.” The albums’ use of drum machine (or rhythm composer) is interesting but not distracting and while minimal it adds rock-solid heartbeat rhythms to the unique sound and gentle dreamy quality. Not quite fitting into the Kalindula category and certainly well outside the Zamrock boundary, Smokey Haangala created something of his own, playing for Mother Zambia and ultimately satisfying Kaunda’s desire for a unifying identity – Zambian through and through.

Discussing the famous Zamrockers, I asked about any interactions between the bands of the time and how Smokey was received amongst his peers, Swithin replied: “Bands and musicians were always almost together in those days. There was competition, though, as more bands were formed from breakups of original dominant bands. For Smokey, a friendship would develop with Rikki Ililonga a Zambian icon and other singers and musicians of that time. As a Sub Editor for the Times of Zambia, Smokey also had a record review column and therefore interacted with almost all bands and musicians. Some, of course, did not like his reviews and there was a memorable run-in with Keith Mhlevu, who was Rikki Ililonga's ardent rival. The competition on who was the better musician in the seventies has never been as intense as that between Rikki and Keith”.

Swithin remembers his brother as two different people; one shy and quiet and who stammered, using plectrums over his glasses to hide his eyes, and another, the performer, confident and commanding, the stutter evaporating completely. Once Smokey quipped: “Clint Eastwood is “the man with the gun sight eyes”, and I am the “man with the beer sight eyes”.” His first appearance on national television was on a show called “Around the Copperbelt” in Kitwe. Swithin was co-presenter of the show and Smokey received several invitations back, adding to his fame and eventual success in becoming a household name.

Buoyed by his success, and keen to indulge his musical passion, Smokey quit his job at the Zambia Daily Mail as a sub-editor famously saying that “work is interfering with my music”. Many people were surprised by his decision, including his family. As a career, being a musician was not a particularly stable form of employment in Zambia at the time. However he “plugged his ears to all criticism” and went ahead to form a new band called Kalyaunga. During a tour to the Southern Province. Smokey recruited some musicians to the band, with Swithin sometimes as the bassist, and notable musician, John Mwansa, also being roped in. John Mwansa was famous in his own right for his hit single Mukamfwila, composed and recorded whilst playing with the Five Revolutions. Kalyaunga got a full-time contract to perform at the Kalipinde Inn which became one of the liveliest and exciting entertainment spots in Lusaka. The band soon transformed into a large ensemble, with Smokey’s group being the first to feature “dancing girls” (regular in Congolese music) in his act. Even acrobats and fire eaters were employed at the Kalipinde as it was “filled to the rafters” with fans and customers hungry for maximum entertainment every weekend. Smokey played mostly organ and vocals in the band. Somehow during this period he still found time to continue pursuing his other love – writing.

Indeed, having just finished two novels at the age of 38, it was in the week of the release of his English language book, “The Black Eye”, and a second in his first language, called, “Okuno Nkuu Lusaka” (This is Lusaka), that Smokey passed away on August 16th 1988. This was a sudden and dramatic end of a much-loved musician, whose legacy is remembered by many in his home country. At the time of his death, the Zambian music industry was also being decimated. CD’s and cassette’s invention and distribution before copyright law was introduced in the country meant that the market for legally produced media was all but removed before it began due to widespread piracy. A subsequent national economic decline and the unemployment that followed also meant that ticket prices for live gigs became impossible for the majority to afford and musicians could not survive. Throw AIDS into the equation and the large number of deaths removed many of the elder statesmen and women of the music scene leaving no-one for the younger stars to learn from and thus much progress was halted. It is only in recent years that the industry is starting to recover. Hopefully, the reissues and compilations by worthy and reverential enthusiasts feeding the internet-driven surge in musical exploration will help rebuild and revive a once rich and deserving scene. To educate the new generation about the past and provide fuel to fire those in the future, one of a kind, original artists like Smokey Haangala are exactly the spark sometimes needed to re-ignite the embers.

Much of the information in this article is derived from discussions with Smokey’s brother Swithin Haangala for which I am extremely grateful.

Matthew Stancombe, 2019

Smokey Haangala’s ‘Aunka Ma Kwacha’ is out very soon on Séance Centre. You can listen and buy it here, or by clicking on the sleeve art above.