Zexie Manatsa: From the Green Arrows to the Gospel Arrows
I lost my way twice while looking for Zexie Manatsa, who was then staying at UMFFC, a ZAOGA centre on the outskirts of Harare. The place was just one of many church properties in the area, but eventually I found it and was shown where he lived.
He was waiting for me, although it was getting dark. He was alone in the house. It was my first time meeting him, and he still had the humorous edge familiar from his songs.
His place was not big, but it was tidy. Just as we started the interview, his wife arrived.
Zexie’s story is long. In many ways, it is also the story of Zimbabwean music. I had not known, for example, that he had played with the late Fanyana Dube as part of one of the earliest Jairos Jiri groups, the Sunrise Kwela Kings.
Listening to Zexie Manatsa narrate his life makes one think of a circle: somehow, it closes where it began.
Manatsa was among the earliest Zimbabwean musicians to record professionally and enjoy the rewards of his music. Yet he had a deprived childhood, and despite the success and fame that followed, the later years of his life were far removed from the prosperity he once enjoyed.
A born-again Christian living on church property in Harare, Manatsa believed his troubles began after he built a general dealership and bottle store in Guruve, his home area, in 1987.
As tradition demanded, he brewed beer for the official opening.
“I had to brew beer for the grand opening ceremony. Indeed, my ancestral spirits came and they blessed the business venture. They even told me that I would prosper but a week after that ceremony, I had an accident.”
The accident happened in September 1987 along the new Chitungwiza-Machipisa road, just after the Hunyani River Bridge, as Manatsa was returning from a show in Chitungwiza at around 2am.
He was travelling in a friend’s car, while a minibus carrying his instruments and other band members followed behind. After the car was involved in a head-on collision, the minibus crashed into it, destroying the band’s equipment.
“The only thing I remember was crossing the bridge and everything else is blank,” said Manatsa, who remained in a coma for more than six weeks.
The accident marked the beginning of a devastating reversal of fortune.
He lost his Southerton home, which he had acquired under a rent-to-buy scheme in 1979, while properties he said he had entrusted to friends for safekeeping were never returned.
“I believe that there was a scam behind the whole deal. How could they say I had failed to pay rent when they knew I was in hospital at the time and that I could not sign cheques?”
Without a home or musical equipment, Manatsa became destitute. He eventually moved to the late Ndabaningi Sithole’s Churu Farm on the outskirts of Glen View 4, where he found accommodation.
The farm was later designated by the government after authorities found that Sithole was illegally resettling people.
Manatsa’s troubles deepened. He made newspaper headlines for shoplifting and heavy drinking, while rumours of drug use circulated. His younger brother Stanley, with whom he had started his musical career, died in 1990.
After leaving Churu Farm, Manatsa moved to Nketa 7 in Bulawayo. It was there that his life took another dramatic turn.
“My conversion was like a calling,” he said.
“I was in the company of my wife coming from a beer hall when we heard people singing about Mwari waEzekiel. Jokingly, I said to my wife, ‘isu ndisu vana vaMwari waEzekiel vacho. Handei nepo tonotora vasikana vari kuimba tivafundise kutamba chipisi dzemunyika.’
“But when we got to the congregation, I was surprised to hear the pastor saying something about drowning and crying for help. And I remembered a day when I almost drowned while on holiday in Kariba.
“The sermon touched me and when he asked whether there were people who were ready to follow Jesus, my wife and I stood up.”
The following morning, the couple told their children they were going to church. The children were so surprised that they followed them to make sure their parents were not actually heading to a shebeen.
A few months later, Manatsa moved to Harare, where he underwent pastoral training.
From Mhangura to the music business
Born on a farm in Mhangura in 1944, Manatsa grew up in a large polygamous family. His father was a hunter with two wives and several children, and providing for the family was difficult.
The children worked on farms to raise school fees and meet other needs. At 20, Manatsa left school while doing Standard Four. By then, however, he was already playing the banjo and several other instruments.
His first major journey away from the farm began with something as ordinary as trying to obtain a chitikinyani, a form of identity document. He travelled to Chinhoyi, only to discover that the issuing officer had moved to Salisbury, now Harare.
Once in Salisbury, Manatsa could not find the office. While wandering around, he spotted a Bulawayo-bound train at the railway station.
“When I inquired and realised that it was cheaper to go to Bulawayo then return to Mhangura, I boarded the train.”
In Bulawayo, his brother’s wife bought him a pennywhistle.
“I spent days practising how to play it.”
When he returned to Mhangura, Manatsa formed a makeshift band with his brother Stanley and Jelousy Siyagwaja. Armed with three acoustic guitars, they performed at tea parties on surrounding farms for a fee, with Manatsa alternating between pennywhistle and guitar.
They played cover versions of South African songs and began performing simanjemanje.
A Chinhoyi hotel owner eventually discovered them and invited the group to perform at his establishment. The businessman, however, failed to pay them as promised.
“When we realised that he was not going to pay us, we borrowed money from friends, stole two electric guitars and fled to Bulawayo where we stayed in Nguboyenja just opposite the Jairos Jiri complex.”
From their accommodation, they could hear guitars being played inside the complex.
“One day, we walked into the complex and asked for permission to test their guitars. The late Jairosi Jiri then found out that we could play better than the inmates. He asked us to play for the organisation, helping raise funds.”
Fanyana Dube, one of the residents, joined them and the Sunrise Kwela Kings was born.
After some time, a businessman known as Homela asked the musicians to play at his nightclub. Jairos Jiri allowed them to leave on condition that they continued helping his organisation. Fanyana remained behind.
With transport and a complete set of instruments, Zexie and Stanley recruited their younger brother Keddies and Raphael Mboweni.
Then came the group that would define Manatsa’s career.
In 1969, Maxie Mabhena, known as the Dark Man, joined them, marking the birth of the Green Arrows Band. A female dance group, the Sakaza Sisters — Attilia Dube, Joyce Banda and Philda Tazman — was also formed.
The band performed songs by groups such as the Mahotella Queens and Isitombi Sesimanjemanje, with Maxie providing the male vocals.
Their popularity grew and better offers followed. They eventually toured Mozambique in 1972, performing before a packed stadium in Beira.
Back home, the Green Arrows moved to Happy Valley Hotel before Manatsa took a job as a salesman-driver with Lebena, a Harare biscuit manufacturer. He moved to Harare and the band soon followed him.
Manatsa later secured a contract for the group at Bhora Business Centre and eventually left his day job to return to music full-time.
Bhora became synonymous with the Green Arrows. People drove from Harare to hear them perform, including radio DJ Webster Shamu, who later recorded the group's debut single, Shamwari Yangu Unonyeperei, backed by Hama, in July 1974.
South African talent scout West Nkosi subsequently heard about the group and travelled to Bhora. Impressed by what he heard, he signed them to Gallo South Africa.
Chipo Chiroorwa, recorded in October 1974, became a massive hit and marked the beginning of Manatsa’s professional recording career. Over the following 13 years, he recorded more than 40 singles and six LPs.
By the late 1970s, the liberation war was intensifying. The band eventually left Bhora for Harare, where it performed at Bonanza Night Club on the corner of Kaguvi Street and Robert Mugabe Road.
The move transformed Manatsa’s fortunes. He acquired a house, bought a complete set of new musical equipment and purchased a minibus.
He also staged a lavish wedding at Rufaro Stadium, where his band performed and more than $19,000 was raised.
Then came the 1987 accident.
“I learnt a lot after the accident. No one came to my help. Not even my recording company. Not even my closest friends. I was alone,” he said.
Years later, the musician who had helped build the Green Arrows was performing again — this time with a gospel group called the Gospel Arrows Band
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