Influenced by
British bands, the Zamrock movement dominated the 1970s until social unrest and Aids dismantled it. As a new documentary is released, Witch frontman Jagari takes a break from gemstone mining to tell his extraordinary life story
Emmanuel Chanda works as a gemstone miner in the Zambian countryside, blasting apart rock faces in search of amethyst. Surrounded by rock and noise, there’s a poetic similarity to what he is best known for: electrifying a nation as the frontman of Witch, the most popular band in 1970s Zambia who released five full-length albums in as many years and were the driving force for the decade’s Zamrock movement. Blending African rhythms with garage rock inspired by imports from the country’s former British colonisers, they were dubbed their country’s own Beatles, and were renowned for incendiary, seven-hour live shows led by Chanda, for whom the stage was simply too small.
Nearly 45 years on from his last studio recordings with the band, Chanda – known as Jagari, after Mick Jagger – has regained some of his stardom. A new documentary by Gio Arlotta, Witch: We Intend to Cause Havoc, has just been released, and traces the band’s legacy from the mines of the Zambian Copperbelt province to festival stages in Europe after an unlikely revival that, in the late 2010s, brought Witch out of Africa for the first time.