‘Cool’ being reborn, vintage Zambian genre

Artists and music fans around the world have been rediscovering the 1970s Zambian sound known as Zamrock in recent years, and now one of the country’s biggest stars is embracing it for a new twist.

As Sampa the Great conceived his third studio album, he turned his attention to the niche musical movement that ignited his country more than 50 years ago.

“We were looking for a decolonial sound and voice, and Zamrock was the new sound of freedom, the sound of boldness,” the Zambian-born Botswana rapper, who has performed at Glastonbury, Coachella, the Sydney Opera House and more, told the BBC.

Zamrock, an ecstatic blend of psychedelic rock and traditional Zambian sounds, lead the way with Can’t Hold Us, the first single to be released from Sampa’s new album.

Fuzz guitars push the song forward, while 32-year-old Sampa (real name Sampa Tembo) raps defiantly. “They don’t have the courage to match my skills.”

And she’s not the only contemporary artist to delve into Zamrock’s dusty boxes. Over the past few years, US hitmakers Travis Scott, Yves Tumor and Tyler, the Creator have sampled tracks from Ngozi Family, Amanaz and WITCH. All were popular bands during Zamrock’s 1970s heyday.

Zamrock can also be heard on screen. The HBO superhero series Watchmen and Emmy winner Ted Lasso included songs from the Zamrock genre on their soundtracks.

This is an unexpected resurgence, especially considering that Jamlock never actually left the African continent during his prime.

The movement emerged in Zambia, recently liberated from British colonialists, in the 1970s. The country was experiencing an economic boom and President Kenneth Kaunda implemented a “Zambia First” policy which meant, among other things, that 95% of music played on radio stations had to be of Zambian origin.

A foundation has been laid for young creatives to build a bold and distinct Zambian musical identity.

“We were influenced by rock bands like Deep Purple, Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and James Brown,” says WITCH frontman Emmanuel Chanda, better known as Jagari, after Mick Jagger.

“But we were Africans. We wanted to play like that rock band, but even the Africans were saying, ‘You can’t leave me behind.’”

In the 1970s, Zambia’s recording studios were rudimentary and there was no established recording industry. Despite this, Zamrock thrived.

Musicians lit up the stage in bell-bottom jeans, platform shoes, and colorful headbands. WITCH, which stands for We Intend To Cause Havoc, lived up to their name with fans clamoring outside sold-out venues hoping to see marathon shows that sometimes lasted from 19:00 to 02:00.

“The fact that they mixed traditional music with psychedelic rock in a conservative country… and the fact that they were able to do that and be loud about it was a very bold thing to do in the ’70s, let alone now.” Sampa says: Sampa was delighted to recently learn that his uncle, George “Groovy” Kunda, was a founding member of WITCH.

But despite all its influence, Zamrock could not last. The genre collapsed after about a decade as Zambia went through a series of crises. The plummeting price of copper, Zambia’s main export, has led to economic decline, reducing the ability to tour, record and buy music.

Music piracy has also hit Zamrockers hard. This is because bootleggers made money by copying and selling music.

And starting in the 1980s, the country was hit hard by the HIV/AIDS crisis, which killed many musicians. Five of WITCH’s founding members died of AIDS.

Zamrock has been dormant for decades. The surviving founders returned to civilian life. Jagari went to work in the mines to support his family.

But in the early 2010s, Western record collectors suddenly took hold of the genre.

The US-based label Now-Again Records was instrumental in the revival of Zamrock, sourcing and reissuing albums by the genre’s leading artists.

Now-Again label boss Eothen “Egon” Alapatt told the BBC: “We weren’t sure there was a market for it. We were sure it was very cool.”

“I thought, ‘If I’m curious about this, there must be other people who are curious about this, too.’”

LP enthusiasts flocked to purchase the limited edition original Zamrock records, naturally causing their value to skyrocket.

“I started getting a lot of requests for original Zamrock records and I didn’t understand why people were so interested,” says Duncan Sodala, a Zamrock fan and owner of Time Machine, a record store in Zambia’s capital Lusaka.

Mr Sodala went online and was “shocked” to discover that records published in the 1970s were selling for between $100 (£74) and $1,000 (£740).

In 2011, Now-Again Records released a compilation of WITCH’s music. Persistent rumors led to a reincarnation of the band featuring Jageri and Patrick Mwondela from their WITCH days and a number of young European musicians.

WITCH have since released two albums, appeared in a documentary, played at the iconic Glastonbury Festival and toured outside of Africa. This was something the original band had never achieved.

“This is like a new lease on life that I never expected in my old age,” Jagari, 74, said by phone from New Zealand, the final stop on WITCH’s 2025 world tour.

“There was crowd surfing in Munich, something I’d never done before.”

Jagari is delighted with his second chance to play Zamrock, but the new opportunity reminds him of the bandmates he sorely misses.

“I wish the whole band, the original lineup, was there to give it a first look,” he says.

The crowds that attend WITCH performances, regardless of age or gender, prove Zamrock’s refreshing appeal.

Other Zamrockers are also being rediscovered. Tyler, the Creator sampled the Ngozi Family’s song 45,000 Volts on his 2024 track Noid, calling the band “amazing.”

“The whole country was doing really, really good,” he told popular interviewer Nardwuar.

Hip-hop producer Madlib and the Beastie Boys’ Mike D have also expressed their admiration for the genre, and Third Man Records, a label co-owned by blues rocker Jack White, has released a recording of live WITCH music.

Egon believes that Zamrock’s incredible popularity is due to its abundance. He also suggests that the genre was initially revived by record collectors because many of the songs were in English.

“There was a huge bias among rock and roll music collectors around the world against music in the native language of the country in which it was made,” he says.

Sodala, on the other hand, believes that Zamrock’s new fans are drawn to the “purity” of the music.

“I think people hear this song and feel how real it is,” he says.

The record store owner welcomes Western artists sampling Zamrock but believes there is a risk of the genre being reduced to curated fragments.

“I think this is why artists like Sampa are so important, because she doesn’t want Zamrock to be known only for samples,” he says.

“I think there’s a fear that if we don’t speak loudly about the origins of Zamrock, we might be left out of the equation. The more we think about it, the more we want to speak loudly about where it came from.”

Hip-hop and R&B are hugely popular in Zambia, but a number of young Zambian artists have also experimented with the genre, including Stasis Prey, Vivo and Sampa the Great collaborator Mag 44.

Lusaka restaurant Bo’jangles held its annual Zamrock festival three years ago, and the city’s Modzi arts institution established a small museum dedicated to the genre.

Sampa says her upcoming album, which does not yet have a release date, falls into a genre she calls “nu Zamrock.”

She has experimented with Zamrock before, but this time its rhythms will be mixed with other influences, such as hip-hop, and run throughout the album.

“I think the resurgence of Zamrock is going to be really huge,” she says.

In New Zealand, Jagari is delighted that Sampa and her colleagues are running the genre they helped birth.

“The light came on,” he said. “It’s up to the younger generation to add more firewood and keep the fire burning.”