I turned eight the year Stevie Wonder’s album
Hotter Than July was released. My favorite song from that album was “Master Blaster.” Like most people, I imagine, I called it “Jammin,’” from its refrain, “Nobody ever told you that you / would be jammin’ until the break of dawn.” A reggae-influenced jubilant song, it makes you want to dance and laugh. And I was listening to it, nostalgically, the day before I heard that the former and first Zimbabwean prime minister, Robert Mugabe, had died.
I cried. Not over Mugabe’s death, but over his loss. Before he was a despot, he was a freedom fighter. In “Master Blaster," Wonder sings, “Peace has come to Zimbabwe / Third World's right on the one / Now's the time for celebration / 'Cause we've only just begun.” It's a party song, and a revolutionary one...