Stella Chiweshe

Stella Chiweshe (also Stella Rambisai Chiweshe, Stella Rambisai Chiweshe Nekati, or Stella Nekati Chiweshe, b. Mujumi Village, Mhondoro, Zimbabwe, 8 July 1946) is a Zimbabwean musician. She is internationally known for her singing and playing of the mbira dzavadzimu, a traditional instrument of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. She is one of the few female players of the instrument, which she learned to play from 1966 to 1969 when even fewer females played the instrument.

Chiweshe has performed numerous times in Germany and has also participated in the WOMAD festival (1994 in the United States, 1995 in Australia, and 2006 in Spain). In 2004 she toured England with her daughter.

In addition to performing as a soloist, Chiweshe often performs in combination with guitars. She has also organized an international women's music festival in Zimbabwe.

In 1989, she starred in I Am the Future, a Godwin Mawuru film about a young woman who travels to the big city to escape Zimbabwe's independence war in the rural areas.

Links To Peel
On his 20 January 1988 show, Peel mentioned Stella Chiweshe's Ambuya? LP as his record of the week. Two months later she did a session for his show in March 1988 and also did another in the summer of 1991. On the cover of Stella's album, Ndizvozvo, which was released in 1988, it mentioned the sub-title 'The Mbira Queen Of Zimbabwe Meets John Peel'. In reality neither of them met each other in the late 80's, which Peel told his listeners on his Peel 109 (BFBS) show on 15th July 1989 when referring to the sub-title on the album:

''"This is from Stella Chiweshe....and it says on the front of the sleeve, "The Mbira queen of Zimbabwe meets John Peel." In fact, we've never actually met, but there is something in the notes to this song which makes me believe that this is perhaps the reference to me. It's a song called Kachembere, and it says, "This is an old favourite story about an old bullfrog which was always seen early in the mornings searching for food with its children. After having enough of it, it would climb into the mountains, lazily yawning, scratching and breaking wind." Well, that does sound a little like me, I have to admit."''