Opinion: When patronage becomes cultural policy. What Mobutu’s Zaire can teach Zimbabwe

By Dr Shame Mugova

Patronage does not become cultural policy because the government writes it into law. It becomes cultural policy when artists learn that proximity to power can pay better than the market.

For several years, Zimbabweans watched an unusual ritual become part of public life. Musicians received luxury vehicles, cash and other rewards, often amid political associations and public celebration. The death of businessman Wicknell Chivayo may have ended the role of the most visible individual associated with this form of patronage, but it should not end the discussion about what the phenomenon represented.

Successful artists deserve to prosper and accepting a gift does not prove that an artist has surrendered independence. Some genuinely support Zanu PF, others different political formations, while some may have little interest in politics. The more important question is what happens to an entire cultural industry when extraordinary rewards repeatedly appear to flow through political relationships rather than through the ordinary economics of music.

Zimbabwe is not the first African country to confront this relationship between music, money and political power. Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire offers an instructive history. Mobutu understood power did not live only in army barracks, ministries and intelligence offices. It also lived on the radio, on the concert stage, on the dance floor and in the songs people carried home.

During the early 1970s, Mobutu intensified authenticité, presented as a recovery of African identity after Belgian colonialism. Congo became Zaire, African names and cultural symbolism were promoted, and the state increasingly connected national identity to the political order surrounding Mobutu. Music was especially useful because Kinshasa already possessed one of Africa’s most sophisticated popular music cultures. Mobutu inherited a cultural capital of enormous value.

One of the most important musicians in this story was Franco Luambo Makiadi. Franco was already one of Africa’s musical giants. Political patronage is often most valuable when it attaches itself to cultural authority that already exists. Mobutu did not give Franco his musical legitimacy. Franco could give some of his legitimacy to Mobutu.

Franco received significant access and support, while political performances and commissions could provide resources difficult to obtain through ordinary music earnings. Historical accounts describe political payments helping him acquire vehicles and equipment for his band. Political praise therefore had material value. A song could become a bus. A political relationship could become equipment. Proximity to power could become productive capital.

Franco’s relationship with power was more complicated than simply describing him as a praise singer. Artists inside systems of patronage can manoeuvre, praise, criticise and avoid sensitive subjects. The political effect of patronage should therefore not be measured only by the praise songs that are recorded. It should also be considered through the songs that are never written.

By 1984, the relationship could become explicit. Franco released Candidat Na Biso Mobutu, roughly meaning Our Candidate is Mobutu, during a presidential election in which Mobutu was the sole candidate. One of Africa’s greatest musicians was lending his cultural authority to an election without meaningful presidential competition.

The same lesson appeared in Zaire 74, the music festival associated with the Muhammad Ali and George Foreman fight in Kinshasa. Mobutu did not finance the festival itself, but his government understood its political value and positioned Zaire at the centre of the spectacle. The musician performs, the crowd dances and the world watches, while the ruler does not need to stand on the stage because his image already towers above it.

Political power does not always need to create culture. Sometimes it only needs to position itself beside culture until the two become difficult to separate. Celebration of the country begins blending into celebration of the regime, and celebration of the regime into celebration of the leader. Mobutu showed that culture could genuinely promote African music and national confidence while also serving political power.

This matters for Zimbabwe because patronage itself is not the problem. Wealthy people have supported artists for centuries, governments fund culture, and companies sponsor performers. The key questions are whether artists have alternatives, whether extraordinary rewards become connected to political relationships, and whether someone can prosper as an artist without cultivating powerful people.

Every industry teaches people where the returns are. Farmers learn which crops pay, entrepreneurs learn which products sell, and artists also learn where rewards come from. In a healthy music economy, those rewards should broadly follow talent, audiences, intellectual property, performances and innovation. But suppose another asset starts producing unusually large returns, access. Relationships then become investments, political events become opportunities, and association itself becomes an economic asset. At that point, patronage becomes more than generosity. It starts becoming a parallel market for cultural success.

Zimbabwe’s own National Music Strategy acknowledges the weakness of the formal route. The country has substantial musical talent, yet many artists struggle to convert popularity into reliable income. Royalty collection has been contested, digital visibility does not always translate into substantial earnings, and financing recording, equipment, touring and promotion remains difficult.

Then another pathway appears. One wealthy and politically connected individual can transform an artist’s material circumstances overnight. When Chivayo gave Tocky Vibes an expensive Mercedes Benz, he himself referred to the inadequacy of ordinary royalty income. The diagnosis contained an uncomfortable truth, the formal music economy was not adequately rewarding the artist. But instead of the system becoming stronger, one wealthy person solved the problem for one musician. That is generous to the recipient. But it is not a music industry. It is a substitute for one.

One musician receives a car while the royalty system remains weak. One star receives extraordinary assistance while thousands of emerging musicians still confront the same market. The individual problem has been solved. The structural problem has not.

The political implications become clearer when reward is linked to political association. When Jah Master received a Mercedes Benz, Chivayo publicly recalled his performances at Zanu PF rallies and praised his association with the party. That does not prove that an artist changed political beliefs in exchange for a vehicle. It tells the wider industry something more important, political proximity can generate returns. The recipient sees generosity. The wider industry sees a pathway.

Imagine a young musician in Mbare, Highfield, Bulawayo, Gweru or Mutare. The conventional route says build an audience, record good music, perform, protect your copyright, market yourself and wait for royalties. Then another route becomes visible, know the right people, appear in the right political spaces and protect valuable relationships. One does not need a directive when the rewards themselves are teaching the lesson. If royalties buy groceries while political proximity buys a Mercedes Benz, society should not be surprised when political proximity starts becoming part of the business model.

This does not mean musicians consciously calculate how much praise will purchase a car. Influence rarely works so mechanically. What changes first may simply be behaviour at the margins. A political rally becomes a networking opportunity. A criticism is softened. A controversial subject is avoided. A song is never recorded. Patronage rarely needs to issue instructions. It works through incentives.

That brings us to self censorship. When a government bans a song, censorship is visible. Self censorship leaves almost no evidence because there is no banned song when the song was never released. There is no instruction to remain silent because the artist has already calculated that silence is safer. Freedom of expression can weaken long before a song is banned. It weakens when the singer decides the song may be too expensive to sing.

The feared cost does not have to be imprisonment. It can be access, a contract, a relationship or the possibility of future generosity. Dependence does not require control. It requires only that losing the relationship carries a meaningful cost. Economic independence therefore means having enough alternatives that no single relationship becomes indispensable. Freedom is strongest when exit is affordable.

This is where Zimbabwe must move from criticism to construction. Private generosity has a legitimate place in culture, but personal patronage should be supplementary rather than essential. Zimbabwe already knows many of the building blocks through its National Music Strategy, stronger copyright protection, better royalty collection, investment, digital systems and international markets.

These measures are less dramatic than handing someone the keys to a luxury vehicle, but they are how an industry is built. Royalties pay artists because music is used, transparent funds distribute support by published criteria, and investors finance music because they see commercial potential.

There is one particularly important test. An artist who criticises the government should remain as eligible for public cultural support as an artist who praises it. If that principle survives, public support can strengthen artistic independence. If it does not, cultural support has started becoming a political reward.

Zimbabwe also needs to treat music more seriously as business and intellectual property. Artists need stronger knowledge of copyright, publishing, licensing, contracts and digital distribution. Teaching hundreds of musicians how to monetise their intellectual property may create more lasting wealth than giving a handful of famous musicians luxury cars. One creates headlines. The other creates an industry.

The measure of success should therefore change. Do not count how many artists received cars. Count how many artists can live from their intellectual property. Do not count how many musicians appeared beside politicians. Count how many Zimbabwean songs earn income beyond Zimbabwe. Most importantly, ask whether an unknown musician with talent, but no political connections, can build a prosperous career.

This brings us back to Mobutu. Mobutu understood the political value of culture. Zimbabwe should understand its economic value. A political system that sees musicians mainly as useful performers will build one kind of cultural economy. A country that sees musicians as owners of intellectual property, exporters, entrepreneurs and employers will build another. The first asks what artists can do for power. The second asks what institutions can do for artists.

The objective should not be to find a better patron. It should be to make patrons less important. A patron can change one artist’s life. An institution can change an industry. Chivayo’s death leaves Zimbabwe with a better question than who will now give musicians cars. What system remains after the patron is gone?

If support disappears with one person, Zimbabwe did not build cultural infrastructure. It built dependence on an individual. Cars wear out, political relationships change and patrons die. Institutions are supposed to outlive all three.

Zimbabwe should support its artists generously, but support should create independence rather than dependence. A musician should be free to praise a president, criticise a president or ignore politics altogether without any of those choices determining whether that musician can build a successful career. The real test is whether an unknown musician with talent, discipline and no political connections can prosper from music.

The danger of patronage is not simply that somebody might sing a praise song. The deeper danger is that an entire generation begins learning that political access is an economic asset. Once that happens, political influence does not have to arrive as censorship. It can arrive as opportunity. Sometimes it only needs to demonstrate that praise is profitable.

A healthy cultural industry does not need artists to bite the hand that feeds them. It makes sure no single hand feeds them in the first place.

Dr Shame Mugova is a Lecturer in Finance at Birmingham City University. He writes on finance, economic policy, governance and development, with a particular interest in Zimbabwe and southern Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.