The ear-friendly tones of Afropop, featuring catchy tunes with bouncy guitars, are a growing presence on the pop landscape. A new album from Zimbabwean singer Oliver Mtukudzi makes a pleasant addition. Tuku, as Zimbabwean fans call him, is a wildly popular singer and songwriter. The oldest of seven children, he left school when his father died to help support his family. Eventually he found his way to a guitar and launched a life in music. This album, Tsimba Itsoka (“No foot, no footprint”), is the 49th in his three-decade career. The title, he says, is about the paths people take through life and the marks they leave behind.

Some tracks meander into easy-listening territory, with a Kenny G-style saxophone, but when the sax gets out of the way, Mtukudzi's husky voice and mellow guitar make a charming, laid-back accompaniment to a day of work, play, or, in my case, writing a story for the December issue of the magazine.

The words have stronger undercurrents, handling topics like violent crime. In “Ungadé We?” (“How would you like it?”), he asks a criminal how he'd feel if someone hurt his child. Other songs lament the difficulties of fame or admonish listeners for lazily waiting to collect their inheritance. But since the lyrics are mostly in Shona, Tuku's mother tongue, to my ears it just sounds cool.

LISTEN: Nzungu Imwe (Download 10_nzungu_imwe.mp3) - this song says that one rotten nut can ruin the taste of a mouthful; behave yourself so you don't spoil the family's image.

— Helen Fields

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