R.U.N.N. family were a Zimbabwean musical group

Music of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean music includes folk and pop styles, much of it based on the well-known instrument the mbira which is also popular in many other African countries. An annual Zimbabwe Music Festival is held each year in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. People from all over the world attend...

 that had several hits in the 1980s, whose songs combined mbira

Mbira

In African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...

-inspired music with reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 and rhumba influences.

The group was made up of siblings from the Muparutsa family, the best known of whom is lead singer and bassist Peter Muparutsa, who - along with his brother, now late, Fortune - continues to work in the music industry.

Hachina Wekutamba Naye

One of the R.U.N.N. family's most successful songs was "Hachina Wekutamba Naye", a lament for the recently deceased President of Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

 Samora Machel

Samora Machel

Samora Moisés Machel was a Mozambican military commander, revolutionary socialist leader and eventual President of Mozambique...

. The short description given to the song on album artwork states:

"Someone keeps stirring and heating the pot. Chepeto

Herbert Chitepo

Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo led the Zimbabwe African National Union until he was assassinated on March 1975. Although his murderer remains unidentified, the Rhodesian author Peter Stiff says that a former British SAS soldier, Hugh Hind was responsible.Chitepo became the first black citizen of...

 (sic), Biko

Steve Biko

Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...

 and now Samora Machel. They kill our friends. We can only pray to God and remember the inheritance of Samora Machel. Our life is the struggle."

This description refers to the controversy surrounding the aircrash in which Machel perished. Released in 1986 on the ZIM label (cat. # ZIM 410), the song proved popular enough to feature alongside Paul Matavire & the Jairos Jiri Band

Paul Matavire

Paul Matavire was a blind Zimbabwean musician and songwriter born in Maranda, Mwenezi District. He rose to prominence in the 1980s when he joined the Jairos Jiri Band based in Bulawayo at the Jairos Jiri Rehabilitation Centre. He was then elected to lead the Jairo Jiri Band, as one of Zimbabwe's...

 and Jonah Moyo on a compilation of Zimbabwean hits produced by the DiscAfrique label, best known for bringing the Bhundu Boys

Bhundu Boys

The Bhundu Boys were a Zimbabwean band that played a mixture of chimurenga music with American rock and roll, disco, country, and pop influences...

 to international attention.

The late Charlie Gillett

Charlie Gillett

Charlie Gillett , was a British radio presenter, musicologist and writer, mainly on rock and roll and other forms of popular music...

lauded the song as:

"One of the great soul records of the 1980s."

Media

• Hear a sample of Hachina Wekutamba Naye