WITCH: We Intend to Cause Havoc

A charming and insightful docu-journey to rediscover one of the great pioneers of the ‘Zamrock’ movement.

Back in 2012, Malik Bendjelloul’s documentary Searching for Sugar Man explored undersung recording artist Rodriguez, a Detroit-born singer-songwriter. More specifically, the film looked at the unusual degree of success and influence his music exerted in apartheid-era South Africa. Its framing device sees two South African Rodriguez fans in the late 1990s journey to find out what happened to this relatively obscure musician in light of his studio album output ending in the 1970s.

The set-up of Gio Arlotta’s music documentary, WITCH, is certainly not identical to that of Bendjelloul’s film, but the rhythms of the editing bear a strong resemblance and it does also concern a small group’s pilgrimage to track down a musical titan from the 1970s that they want to bring to more people’s attention. That the journey of the film effectively starts in 2014, only two years after Sugar Man’s success, makes an intentional influence seem plausible.

Rather than fans venturing from an African country to find and learn more about their idol, WITCH sees fans coming to Africa from afar instead. The country in question is Zambia and the eager researchers include Italian director Arlotta himself, who narrates, and Dutch baroque pop artist Jacco Gardner. They’re on a mission to meet and learn from Jagari, the last surviving member of the original lineup of WITCH (acronym: We Intend to Cause Havoc), the most popular band of a musical movement labelled ‘Zamrock’: Zambian music that combined a mix of rock, soul, funk, psychedelia, afro-beat and, eventually, disco. Jagari, real name Emmanuel Chanda, adopted that name because his exuberant on-stage performances were compared to those of Mick Jagger.

After an arrest, prison sentence and religious conversion, Jagari went on to live a quiet life of countryside gemstone mining. But the making of the documentary and reunion with Zamrock peers leads to a reformation of WITCH to commence international touring, in light of their back catalogue reaching much of the western world for the very first time, thanks to the long-delayed distribution of those albums. In a strange turn of fate, Arlotta himself ends up becoming the manager of the new version of WITCH, who embark on their first ever European tour.

Although the charming Jagari is the primary focus, he is not the documentary’s only participant from the period. Others include Patrick Mwondela, who was a member of WITCH in its early 1980s disco phase, and Victor Kasoma, guitarist of the band The Oscillations. They are among the few survivors of the Zamrock movement, as many of their peers were, according to Jagari, suspected victims of the AIDS epidemic during the 1980s.

This is one way in which the documentary is solemn alongside being celebratory. Another is reflected in how the state-owned television company’s poor preservation of footage of the Zamrock movement’s heyday means that there is virtually no archive material of WITCH performing. Newspaper clippings are the only primary documents. Jagari’s magnetic present-day presence is thankfully able to make up for this lack of footage. You never doubt at all that this man was a capital-S star.

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Published 30 Jun 2021

Tags: Documentary Film music WITCH: We Intend to Cause Havoc