Edith Katiji, known professionally as Edith WeUtonga, is a Zimbabwean Afro-jazz and Zimbabwe traditional musician who plays bass guitar while leading vocals, songwriter, actor and music teacher. She was born in Kadoma, which lies approximately 166 kilometres, by road, southwest of Harare. Being of Malawi origin and growing up in Bulawayo she sings in 4 different languages mainly Shona, Chichewa, Ndebele and English. Her band is called Utonga which means dawn. She is one of only a few bass guitar players in Zimbabwe who is also the lead vocalist for a band. Katiji also plays acoustic guitar, mbira and drums.
Career
After completing her secondary education, she pursued music with the Army School of Music at the Brady Barracks, in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, where she started off as a vocalist with the Army Band and soon moved on to the city's famed Amakhosi Township Square Cultural Centre. While there she joined a 6-month musical instruments crash course for women musicians. This gave birth to the all-female band from Amakhosi called Amakhosikazi where she started off as composer and lead vocalist for the band and later discovered her passion for the bass guitar. Amakhosikazi disbanded in mid-2006. Katiji, the bassist formed a new band from the remnants of Amakhosikazi, called ‘So What?!’ The group relocated to Harare and joined the live music circuit at many of the popular city-centre venues including the famous Book Café and Mannenberg, The Kraal, Jazz 105 and Sports Diner. In 2008 So What?! went through some changes after a few key members left for greener pastures as the economic situation in the country worsened. The new, rather depleted version of So What?! continued to meet their music commitments – until her near-fatal car accident. In 2017, she was elected to be the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Musicians Union. Katiji is married to Zimbabwean filmmaker Elton Mjanana and they have two children together. In 2019 Edith graduated from Midlands State University with an Honours Degree in Music Business, Musicology and Technology
Life-threatening accident
Katiji had near-fatal car accident in July 2008 where she sustained serious head and facial injuries and was in a coma for almost two weeks. The accident left her physically scarred on her face and she lost a friend who was in the passenger's seat.
During her recovery, she had discovered a new sound within herself. She felt that her scrape with death, followed shortly afterward by the birth of her second son, presented her with a new beginning in life, calling the new sound ‘Utonga’, meaning ‘dawn’ and re-branded herself and her band as Edith weUtonga‘Edith of Dawn’.
Acting
Edith is also an actor. While at Amakhosi she featured in productions like Athol Fugard's Hello & Goodbye, the Greek classic Lyssistrata, Raisedon Baya's Tomorrow's People. Away from Amakhosi she scored leading roles in Alone But Together by Wonder Guchu and also Silent Words by Tawanda Kanegoni which made its debut at Harare International Festival of the Arts. It was Cont Mhlanga, founder of Amakhosi who introduced her to the small screen by giving her a leading role as Mai Shupi in the TV drama, Sinjalo. She won an award for her performance. Edith also toured locally and regionally with theatre production by ArtsLab called Standing in Pairs which performed at the Grahamstown Festival.
