IT is now almost a month since you departed for greater glory.
I could have written this obituary a few days after your burial in Katsukunya Village, rural Mutoko, but that was not it.
Firstly, it is that I could not believe that you had passed on.
Secondly, I needed courage to pen this obituary after having closely worked with you in your entire music career.
And lastly, I knew after your promotion to heaven, you were going to inspire a change for the whole nation somewhere, somehow as you wanted it.
The track Saina became an instant hit after you released it in 2015.
It instantly became a national anthem at weddings, graduation parties, drinking holes as well as topped the local music charts.
There was an outcry by a huge section of your followers when the track was announced on position seven of the Radio Zimbabwe Top 50 charts that year.
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Sungura fans felt that you had been robbed of the first position, which Leonard Zhakata went on to occupy with his track Madam Boss.
You were not expecting such frenzy and you became one of the most sought-after sungura musicians in the country.
Your brother, Howard, came into the music industry before you, but you catapulted to fame right before his eyes.
Such was your talent.
A talented lead and rhythm guitarist you were such that your touch was felt on Howard’s debut album Umbiridzo.
But you didn’t like it, yes you told me that!
We met for the first time in the small farming town of Marondera in April 2017.
I had called you for a newspaper interview, but you refused to talk over the phone.
“Mukoma nyaya iyi inoda face to face (My brother, this issue needs us talking face to face) since you are in Marondera let me come there,” I vividly remember this response.
In a few hours, we met at a local pub, me sipping my beloved Zambezi Lager beer and you feasting on a bottle of water.
In the pub, no one noticed your presence despite adorning your favourite haircut and a black jacket.
The song Saina was played in the same pub, imbibers taking to the dance floor, but none of them knew you were among them on the day.
“I am not a Sungura musician mukoma, ndoimba gospel ini (I sing gospel),” you claimed.
You tried hard on that day to convince me and distance yourself from mainstream sungura.
“OK, mine is soft sungura,” you said before breaking into laughter.
You gave in.
I remember telling you that your moniker, Spanner Boy, was good and that you needed something to challenge top sungura musicians up there.
The moniker Spanner Boy was coined from your surname, Pinjisi, which literally is a pair of pliers.
You refused a new stage name, but I told myself that I was going to impose it on you, in my own way.
After two days, I did an entertainment story with a screaming headline Is Pinjisi the new Sungura Messiah?
You did not believe it that you were up there and that you were reshaping and rejuvenating sungura, which at that time was seemingly sinking, with only Alick Macheso at the helm.
But you didn’t like it!
“Mukoma mandiremedza, inini chaiye Sungura (My brother, you have) Messiah?, Remember I am a Pentecostal, I love to do it as gospel music,” you told me over the phone after the article had gone viral.
You adopted the new stage name and your music show posters splattered across towns and cities read “Tatenda Pinjisi: The Sungura Messiah”.
I do not regret to tell the world that you loved your Christian background more than your music career.
You were stuck to your Christian lyrics and values until the day you breathed last.
At one point, I remember that you dumped the guitar saying you wanted to concentrate on your gospel mission.
You bounced back on the stage because this unforgiving economy forced your hand.
I have no doubt that after joining The Messiah, in whatever form, you engaged him and told him of the country’s chaotic health system.
It is after your passing on that the issue of a crumbling health system began to be hyped.
Your fans and citizens at large are of the belief that you departed earlier than expected due to the country’s long neglected health system.
Your death is being used as an example of how people are dying due to lack of drugs, among other basic medical things.
Indeed, you are a Sungura Messiah now with The Messiah.
Even government recently admitted the chaos in public hospitals.
Youth Development minister Tinoda Machakaire stunned us all early this week when he confessed that things are not well in the country’s hospitals, including Sally Mugabe Central Hospital where you breathed your last.
Government says it is now seized with the issue and we hope and pray that authorities will be quick to take action and deal with the elephant in the room.
As a spanner boy, I know you hold no grudge and wherever you are, you want the health system in the country to be fixed.
You refused fame, you refused your top sungura post all because of your Christian values.
I now understand why!
Rest in peace, The Sungura Messiah.
