Online Reporter
THIS week, as part of our series of articles focusing on some of the biggest musical hits produced by our own stars, we cast the spotlight on Leonard Zhakata.
We gave a platform to the army of music fans who believe that Zhakata’s smash hit song ‘Mugove’ is the finest ever song by a local musician.
This was a follow-up to us giving a similar platform to the voices of those music fans who also feel that Leonard Dembo’s smash hit song, ‘Chitekete’ is the finest of them all.
After giving a platform to those who believe that ‘Chitekete’ is the best, it was only natural that we should also give a slot to those who feel otherwise.
After all, that is what we are expected to do all the time — giving both sides of the story to our readers.
We never judged, never claimed that ‘Chitekete’ is better than ‘Mugove’ or vice –versa.
All that we did was just give a platform to enable those with strong views to make their points and we saw a lot of backing for ‘Mugove’ the same way we saw a lot of backing for ‘Chitekete’.
And, boy oh boy, they did.
The series has generated the biggest feedback, from our readers, since the beginning of the year.
We have seen that our content, on the same subjects, has also been taken and used to curate stories by other bloggers and other media organisations and there has also been a lot of engagement on those fronts.
Our intention was never to try and impose a song as the finest of them all.
Our intention was to celebrate these classic songs and ensure that they remain part of the conversation in our music industry because they are timeless products.
We believe that we succeeded on that front and it also gives us a reason to continue the series.
The next step is to also talk about the legends like Oliver Mtukudzi and Thomas Mapfumo and talk about their products and provoke debate to see if they don’t also qualify to be the finest songs of all-time on the local scene.
Then, of course, there are the likes of Simon Chimbetu, who also produced songs which can also be classified as the finest of all-time and Samatenga could be one of them.
We read the other day that Patrick Mkwamba was also not happy that we did not include his hit song, ‘Bonus,’ in the conversation.
We didn’t include songs to be included in the debate but we just gave a platform to views from the music fans.
We acknowledge sentiments from respected industry personalities like Mono Mukundu who argue that it is virtually impossible to come up with a song which can be considered the finest of all-time.
Yes, that’s true but that shouldn’t mean that we should not have the debate around this subject.
After all, such a debate is just a celebration of the great songs that we have had in this country.
