Oliver "Tuku" Mtukudzi has been a force in world music since first gaining attention in his native Zimbabwe in the late '70s, and the body of work he's compiled since is a living tribute to his excellence. "Tsimba Itsoka" is beautiful music, alive with subtlety, eminently listenable and teeming with pointed social commentary. The metaphor that underpins this album is footprints. Tuku asks what sort of footprints do his listeners leave in their world, a question whose relevance reaches far beyond Zimbabwe. The message rides sublime musical arrangements. Note the saxophone embellishments on "Kuipedza" and "Vachakunonokera," jazzy insinuations adding yet another color to his polyphonic vocabulary.

-by Philip Van Vleck