(FILM) For reasons I’m still trying to figure out, I left my childhood in the US (1974-1981) with no knowledge of reggae music and martial arts films. And so my first year in Zimbabwe, newly independent at the time, brought many discoveries. One was of the reggae superstar Bob Marley and the other was the martial arts superstar Bruce Lee. Black Africans saw these artists as…

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...