Elephant Man didn’t disappoint!

washed away by what happened on that day.
Earlier on, I was a bit sceptical about these foreign artistes who come to our country and give us half-baked performances like what we saw at the Sean Kingston shows.

I was of the opinion that due to the way we are fun-starved at the moment, we can be gullible to these foreigners and receive them with open palms.
However, Clint Robinson and company, who organised the Elephant Man show, were up to scratch and gave one hell of a good performance by the visiting Jamaican star.
“The Energy God”, as some would like to call Elephant Man, was five star in his performance and showed one or two things to our local artistes, in terms of how crowds can be raised to another level.

Elephant Man gave a lesson or two to our rising star Winky D, who was wrongly and misleadingly labelled as his rival – but I am happy The Bigiman didn’t disappoint at all.
It was hilarious and embarrassing at the same time, listening to our local artistes trying to imitate the Jamaican patois during the Elephant Man presses, when in fact the man clearly couldn’t even understand a single word, which was being mouthed.

No one can play dancehall or better still reggae better than the Jamaicans for it’s in their blood, just like how no one not even our locals can play kwasa kwasa like the Congolese as much as they would like to imitate.

I wasn’t really chuffed with the complaints from the local guys who felt they were treated like scraps by the organisers of the Elephant Man show.
Local artistes say they are given a raw deal whenever international artistes are in town and are treated more like groupies.

Stunner was the first to make these accusations but most people turned against him and labelled him a cry-baby when he complained about the way he was treated at the Sean Kingston show.
Stunner alleged they were treated like dirt and made to kiss Mr Kingston’s feet who behaved as if he had the monopoly to world music.

King Shaddy, whose star is on the rise and is being touted as the future of local urban music, didn’t have any kind words for local promoters whom he felt are undermining Zimbabwean artistes.
Though Shaddy wasn’t on the official roster of artistes billed to perform at the Elephant Man show he had a duet with Winky D. It’s high time local promoters started giving them respect.

Shaddy said they were made to look like serfs in the eyes of the Jamaican delegations led by Elephant Man.
He said they were reduced from serious musicians to hangers on as they were forced to be the yes-men of the Jamaican.

What riled Shaddy most was the fact that Elephant Man tried by all means to network with the local artistes but the promoters were the stumbling block.
“Worldwide it’s the promoters who link up musicians from different countries but here it’s a different thing altogether.

“These local promoters treat us like dirt and openly avoid or ignore us in the presence of these big artistes.
“You can be told to clear the room when these guys are coming but surprisingly we would have been asked to be in the room first.

“Also when we meet them we are made to look like we are some sort of nobodies without any way of interacting with these guys, no introductions, no nothing which I feel is very bad,” said Shaddy.
Shaddy also said whenever they had the chance to talk to these foreign artistes about working on collaborations, no matter the enthusiasms from these foreign peeps promoters put them on hold.

“These guys should give us a little bit of respect rather than treat us like beggars. The least they can do is link us with these musicians for collabos or something but they don’t want.
“In fact, when you try to link up on your own with these international guys these promoters go mad about it,” said Shaddy.