Emmanuel “Jagari” Chanda was once the most famous rock star in Zambia, south-central Africa. He remembers his ’70s heyday like it was yesterday: the police motorcades that cleared the roads en route to stadium gigs in the capital Lusaka, and Lilongwe in nearby Malawi. The marathon dance wig-outs sparked by his band’s riotous blend of traditional Zambian music and psychedelic rock. The crowds that caught him as he stage-dived, fluorescent body-shirt open, giant bell-bottoms flapping, into their arms.

“People were just so excited to see a band from their own region,” says Chanda, 74, of his original stint as the frontman of WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc), a group that kick-started the movement known as Zamrock. “Our records sold like hotcakes. Our concerts went for hours. The dancing didn’t stop.”

A grin. “Half a century later, like the story of the Phoenix, WITCH have risen again. Our back catalogue is out. We have a new record, our first in 39 years. We are touring the world. And people are still going crazy.”

WITCH’s 1972 debut album Introduction was the first commercially released full-length Zamrock record, issued at a time when Zambia had no discernible music industry; vinyl LPs were pressed in Kenya, then hand-sold at concerts. WITCH led the charge for a multitude of fuzz guitar-wielding bands influenced by British and American artists played on Zambian pop radio, whose vibe they combined with percussive dance rhythms and upbeat kalindula guitar melodies to giddying effect.

Zamrock rode the spirit of liberation rippling on after October 24, 1964, when the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia was released from 75 years of colonisation and found economic freedom in its booming copper mines, and was buoyed by the authenticity campaigns of first President Kenneth Kaunda, who decreed that 95 per cent of music played on the Zambia Broadcasting Service had to be of Zambian origin.

Chanda had been raised by his elder brother in the copper mining town of Kitwe, where his love of western rock music saw him singing, writing lyrics and throwing the sort of shapes that James Brown would throw on his visit to Zambia for two iconic concerts in 1970. He tells of watching black-and-white American TV shows in the municipal hall (“The Invisible Man had us all running home, fast, because we thought he was real”) and jamming in bands until his friend, George “Groovy Joe” Kunda (later an uncle to Zambian rapper Sampa the Great), recruited him to join Kingstone Market, the group that would shape-shift into WITCH.

“WITCH were named for a foot switch, a wah-guitar pedal, until the guy who designed our album covers invented the acronym,” Chanda says. “We were obliged to live up to our name and cause dance havoc.”

The success of Introduction saw WITCH relocate to Lusaka, where they battled contractual wrangles and piracy problems to become the stuff of art-rock legend. Their onstage garb included artfully torn clothes and women’s underwear over their flares. They drove their distinctively painted truck to gigs throughout Zambia; a cursory sighting of the parked-up WITCH van was enough to draw a crowd, fill a venue.

Other Zamrockers had their own recycled antics: Keith Kabwe of Amanaz dressed in a skeleton costume to leap out of a coffin, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins-style. Paul Ngozi of Ngozi Family played guitar with his teeth like Hendrix. They customised their cover songs (“We’re a Zambian band,” Chanda would holler on Grand Funk Railroad’s We’re an American Band), and appropriated their stage-names: The Peace. The Lusaka Beatles. Chanda had long been nicknamed “Jagari”, a take on (Mick) Jagger, and would invest WITCH’s cover of the Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil with requisite rooster-chested showmanship.

Chanda composed most of WITCH’s originals, including the hits Janet and Lazy Bones, his lyrics lamenting conflict personal and political, telling of love and unity. Songs were rehearsed within a strict regime: cover versions in the morning; originals in the afternoon; no girlfriends in the studio. Any profits went towards buying equipment, paying for the next recording, and maintaining each member’s small weekly stipend.

WITCH released five albums including 1975’s darkly magnificent Lazy Bones and the wild 1976 opus Lukombo Vibes, before Chanda quit the band. Authoritarianism was increasing. The economy was crashing. Fighting in neighbouring Angola, Mozambique and Rhodesia meant blackouts, curfews; Chanda spent three nights in prison for “noise making to annoyance” and was only released after protests from fans.

By the end of the ’70s he was teaching at a high school and assisting his wife, a Pentecostal pastor, at their church. The AIDS epidemic set about claiming the lives of the five remaining WITCH members (“I know I have the favour of God,” he says. “I try and help the families of my departed friends through royalties”). A disco-fied incarnation of WITCH led by synth-king Patrick Mwondela would flare briefly, birthing two more albums. But by the mid-1980s WITCH had fizzled out, and the largely undocumented Zamrock scene with it.

“I definitely felt that my musical career was over,” says Chanda, who would leave teaching and spend decades labouring in a private gemstone mine, earning just enough to sustain his family (he’s currently a grandfather of seven) while always hoping to strike it rich.

Fast forward to today. “Zamrock has awakened from its decadent slumber,” emotes Chanda on Zango, WITCH’s current 2022 release, whose 10 tracks tell in English and the Chewa language of love, diversity and inclusivity over passages of chugging Afrobeat, spacey psych-pop and wild synth solos courtesy of Mwondela, an ex-WITCH member similarly resurrected and revitalised. Guest features include Keith Kabwe and Sampa the Great, who recruited Chanda to sing on Can I Live? a tune from her 2021 album As Above, So Below, and returns the favour on Avalanche of Love, a standout track that is pure Zamrock gold.

“These amazing musicians are all part of God’s plan to complete his will in my life,” says Chanda, who was tracked down in 2012 by Los Angeles-based record label Now Again, which was keen to reissue WITCH’s complete works. The ensuing wave of interest in Zamrock inspired an Italian filmmaker and crate-digger named Gio Arlotta to make a pilgrimage to Zambia; his 2019 rockumentary We Intend to Cause Havoc tells the story of WITCH while repositioning Chanda for a younger generation.

Despite the whiff of Columbusing, of white men discovering things, there is no doubting the awe with which Arlotta (who is now WITCH’s manager) and his musician mates, Jacco Gardner and Nic Mauskovic (who now play in WITCH) regard the talismanic Chanda. Or indeed, the older man’s joy at being feted.

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The film ends with the new WITCH line-up playing a gig in Europe, where they toured again to acclaim last November. “A crazy, ham-fisted, irresistible party with the titans of Zambian rock,” declared the UK Daily Telegraph of a London show that saw Chanda high-stepping through tunes old and new, reinforcing the message of positivity that runs through Zango with a verve part paternal, part rebel.

“Music is a healer and a messenger,” he tells me. “It unites beliefs, embraces every race. Back then the WITCH were all about peace and love. And you know what?”

He pauses, smiles.“We are all about peace and love now.”

WITCH play at The Rechabite Hall, Perth, March 2; Sydney Opera House, March 4; powerhouse Theatre Brisbane, March 6; Estonian House, Brunswick, March 7 and Golden Plains Festival, Meredith, March 9 and WOMADelaide, Botanic Park, Adelaide, March 10 & 11.