Its 43 years now since Zimbabwe a country located in Southern part of Africa attained its independence from British colony ,and that magical moment is associated with the very first performance on African soil by the legendary Bob Marley and the Wailers on 18th April 1980 .The Bob Marley performance would not have happened if the then Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Robert 'Bob' Mugabe had got his way as he had preferred the English artist Sir Cliff Richards to perform instead ,but the idea was met with some resistance from other ministers including a senior cabinet minister the late Edgar 'Two-boy' Tekere who had said Bo Marley's cassettes had inspired the them in the bushes as they fought the Rhodesian government before independence .
Edgar Tekere met up with local businessman Job Kadengu owner of local clubs Jobs nitespot and Playboy and another businessman Gordon Muchanyuka at Playboy as most places were still heavily influenced by apartheid and rasicms so there were very few places were blacks could mix and mingle ,on that night Edgar Tekere mentioned to the two businessman that he would love to have Bob Marley perform at the Independence Day but did not have anyway to contact him and this was overheard by bar manager Thomspon Kachingwe who then told them about local dj Mike Mundwa who used to play reggae on national radio and he was instructed by Tekere to go and fetch him which he did and this led to Mike Mhundwa linking up his friend in London who later linked him with Island Records UK who then forwarded them to Island Records Jamaica and finally to Marley's represantives in Jamaica and all this happened 2 weeks before the performance .
Chris Blackwell Marley's manager that time was against Marley going to Zimbabwe as the country had just come out of a 16 year civil war so he feared for Marley's security ,but Marley on the other hand was over the moon as this was his first time to go to the motherland so he managed to convince his team who asked for protection from the government and also for their own security to bring in their own guns and all his was cleared by the government and since Marley was one of the most in demand artist around that time he had to turn down a number of US shows ,and also decided to foot the cost himself according to Tommy Cowan who was marketing manager at Tuff Gong studios and in order to have a magical performance he went on to charter a plane to bring equipment from England and engineers to help set up the equipment ,before the show things where not going smooth sailing as due to racism they were told the local Jameson Hotel is fully booked and they sited the white manager was intimidated by the Rastafari's and since Job Kadengu had just purchased Skyline Motel they ended up staying there.
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