W.I.T.C.H. with PAINT @ The Horseshoe, Friday

Original W.I.T.C.H. member Jagari Chanda is joined by hard-whumpin' backing band to reprise the band's Zamrock classics. 

Here's the scoop...

W.I.T.C.H. (We Intend To Cause Havoc) were the biggest rock band in Zambia in the 1970s and spearheaded a new genre dubbed Zamrock, fusing influences that ranged from the Rolling Stones to Black Sabbath and James Brown and mixing them with traditional African rhythms and bush village songs. At t the peak of their popularity, the band often needed police to keep fans at bay while their lead singer Jagari - whose name is an Africanisation of Mick Jagger’s - riled up crowds by stage diving from balconies and dancing manically as the WITCH’s blend of psychedelic rock and African rhythms permeated the surrounding atmosphere.

Emmanuel Jagari Chanda is the charismatic sole surviving original member of the band. As Zambia’s economy stagnated and the country buckled under the AIDS crisis, WITCH fell apart. Jagari retreated to a life of quasi-anonymity as a university music professor before being wrongfully arrested during Zambia’s toughest hour. Now a man in his 60s, he spends his time mining gemstones hoping to strike it rich, until very recently the band being just a nostalgic memory of his youth.

Largely unknown outside of their home country, WITCH finally got the exposure they deserved when Now Again Records reissued their entire discography in 2012. This allowed Jagari to play outside Africa for the first time and for a new generation of fans to discover his music. In 2016 he began a collaboration with Dutch musicians Jacco Gardner and Nic Mauskoviç, and together with them, in September 2017 WITCH headed out on its extremely successful first-ever European Tour,

In the Fall of 2019, WITCH embarked on their first North American tour, including a well-received performance at Desert Daze.

WITCH plays The Legendary Horseshoe with PAINT on Friday (October 7) at 8 pm. Advance tickets are $30 plus service charge available right here. Watch a recent WITCH performance on KEXP following the trailer for Gio Arlotta's new WITCH documentary We Intend To Cause Havoc and a performance of "Lazy Bones" from South Africa's Endless Daze Festival back in 2018.