Oliver Mtukudzi & The Black Spirits

Bonnie Raitt once compared him to a cross between soul legend Otis Redding and reggae icon Toots Hibbert. Devotees refer to his huge catalog of R&B-inflected Zimbabwean music, simply and irreducibly, as "Tuku Music." However you frame him, Oliver Mtukudzi speaks to audiences the world over - in Shona, Ndebele, and English - with his deep, inviting voice and agile guitar-playing. A seasoned navigator of the complex Zimbabwean cultural and political scenes, Mtukudzi has become, over a storied four-decade career, "one of the giants of African pop" (Utne Reader). Now he comes calling with his Black Spirits, who spryly flesh out his hypnotic melodies and percussive rhythms.