Yellowknife (Oct 20/06) - When a loved one dies, everyone deals with the loss in a different way.

For Yellowknifer Chaka Rukobo, the best response to losing his mother was to create a CD, available today, honouring the music that was part of her life.

Chaka, at left, and Nokuthula Rukobo show off Anotida, a CD of Zimbabwean choral music that was produced and illustrated in the North. - Adam Johnson/NNSL photo

"My mother loved music," he said. "She sang in a choir in Zimbabwe."

Rukobo has lived in Yellowknife for the past four years.

In 2005, he brought his mother, Lavinia Makuzva, to live with him, but she fell ill soon afterwards.

"After a few weeks with us, she stayed in the ICU," he explained, where she eventually died of cancer.

"On the first anniversary of her death, I decided to do something everlasting, something in memorial to my mother."

What he did was travel to Zimbabwe to record the sounds of the Kambuzuma Methodist Choir, his mother's choir, at a local studio in Harare.

The result is Anotida ("God Loves Us"), a collection of a cappella African choir music, augmented by traditional percussion.

The tracks rise and fall with a powerful energy, particularly on the CD's title track, as choir members sing and harmonize, while adding background with drums, shakers and Kudu horns.

While recorded in Zimbabwe, the CD is still a Northern production, with mixing and mastering work done at Norm Glowach's Spiritwalker Productions, and liner art from Yellowknife artist Diana Mathisen.

"It's a way for me to bring one form of African culture to the North and share it with the people here."

"It's a big challenge," Rukobo said of the CD's creation.

"I'm very happy that I finally have something, tangible, something that reminds me of my mother in a very comforting way, something that I know will live forever."

Kuboko said a CD release will be held Monday, Oct. 30, at the Yellowknife Public Library. Proceeds from the CD will go towards buying a public address system for the Kambuzuma Methodist Church in Harare and new instruments for the choir.