'Bogus' Black Uhuru at Mugabe inauguration?

Jamaican reggae outfit Black Uhuru, who failed to impress at President Robert Mugabe's inauguration gala held at the National Sports Stadium on Thursday night, have moved to quell rumours that they could have been a bogus band.

There were fears after the Jamaicans' uninspiring set that music fans could have been duped by a group of session musicians masquerading as Black Uhuru as the band did not play a single popular track from the band's broad playlist.

However, Raymond "Iqulah" Topping, who was the stand-in leader of the band on the group's Zimbabwean visit, dismissed the allegations, saying the sound system did not allow them to play a lot of their preferred songs.

"The PA system was not up to standard and so some of our popular songs were not going to come out good. In the end we just decided to go for those that had a message for our brothers and sisters," said Iqulah.

The Jamaican further explained that Derrick "Duckie" Simpson, the group's founding member, had failed to make it to Zimbabwe due to the short notice that they were given.

"Duckie is an elder and he is not someone you can just rush. But we still have the energy to do many things at once and so we said we will fulfill the journey to Zimbabwe as requested.

"We had to cancel a show in Exeter, which was scheduled for today (Friday) but we are rushing back now to fulfil our other contractual obligations in Birmingham tomorrow (yesterday)," explained Iqulah.

But Rtd Major Mutambudzi, who was co-ordinating the event on behalf of the Government, said besides the same explanation of "last-minute logistical challenges", it was apparent that there were fissures in the group. "They also explained to us the same, but it did not add up, and we have a strong feeling there were divisions in the group that had nothing to do with us. And since we had told the nation that Black Uhuru was coming, we could not cancel their trip because of the differences they were having. We even bought tickets for Derrick and another guy who didn't travel as well."

Rtd Major Mutambudzi said in spite of the differences within the group prior to their coming, it was Black Uhuru that travelled, minus its founding member. Another band member, Michael Campbell, said the nine-member team that came to Zimbabwe had the blessings of the founding member and band leader, Duckie Simpson.

The rest of the team that performed in the country and left for England on Friday afternoon consisted of Eric Burton, Paget King, Donovan Fontaine, Cyrus Richard, Caswell Swaby, Anthony Ward and Wright Stephen.