Abundance Mutori was just 14 when he began playing with the other members of Mokoomba. It was in 2002, when they were at school together at Mosi-Oa-Tunya High in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, and he remembers that their biggest problem was getting hold of instruments. “We didn’t have our own, and even at school when we had a music class we didn’t have any guitars or keyboards,” he says. “But my dad used to play in church and had a bass guitar at home, and he first showed me how to play. From then on, I was practising by myself or jamming with the guys.” Now, in their mid-20s, Mokoomba are being feted as Africa’s most internationally successful young band after a rise that is as deserved as it has been remarkable. After all, they come from a country with an international musical profile that has sadly declined since the glory days of the 80s, largely because of Aids. Even in Zimbabwe they were initially considered outsiders. They sing in Tonga, a language that most Shona and Ndebele speakers can’t understand, and come from a tourist border town that’s a 12-hour drive from the capital, Harare. ----read the full article at The Guardian here.