adminFred Zindi Music
WITH good jobs hard to find in Zimbabwe, more and more youths are taking to singing as a way of survival instead of aimlessly hanging around the shop corners from sunrise to sunset. Most youths I have spoken to say that they are prepared for self-employment by forming bands but venue owners will not accept them unless they pay for the use of the venue. Does that mean there are too many music groups chasing after too few venues?
The Government should now think of granting licences to street performers as more and more talented youngsters are looking for something worthwhile to do. They can start by giving musical groups licences to entertain guests as they arrive at Harare International Airport.
These guests would feel the warmth of Zimbabwe as soon as they set foot into the country. Welcoming musical groups could also set up shop at every airport within the country to include Bulawayo and Victoria Falls. This will automatically provide the much needed jobs to the country’s musicians.
When I was a teenager, I used to admire my musician friends who got contracts to entertain patrons in city beerhalls, hotels and nightclubs. Many of my friends had contracts with Hotera ya Gwaku in Mbare, Machipisa Nightclub and Mutanga Nightclub in Highfield.
Others had contracts to play in City of Harare beer gardens. Great bands such as the Harare Mambo Band, The Great Sounds, The Springfields, The All Saints, The Four Brothers and The Delphans came out of such places and later became household names. Some patrons used to go to pubs and clubs just to listen to these bands.
Those who came to drink could not resist the music and did not go home until the band played its last note. But that seems to be a thing of the past now. City of Harare, through its subsidiary, Rufaro Marketing, seems to have abandoned the brilliant idea of entertaining patrons at its drinking premises and the number of patrons attending such venues also seems to have dwindled.
The neglect of such venues through lack of maintenance and corruption have led to less and less people patronising these places. Who would be interested in frequenting a place where toilets are cleaned only once a month or not cleaned at all? No one, even the poorest of the poor, likes a place which is dingy, gritty and has a general air of heebie jeebies.
In the past, the only conducive reason people went there was the music, but that also is gone. As countless numbers of musicians and pseudo-musicians come on the scene, it is worth thinking again about how to create venues where of these can be gainfully employed.
Most of them are facing difficulties in finding venues in which to show their talents. We need to start thinking about expanding our venue base to accommodate all these emerging musicians.
I am completely at a loss about the new names of music groups and individual musicians that I come across daily. Out of the many names that have emerged recently, the most popular ones include RBG, a sungura outfit that has churned out songs such as “Chiedza”, “Makanaka”, “Mangochi”, “Monica”, “Vatema” and “Usazvinetse”, Their album, simply entitled “Top Sungura”, is getting fair airplay from Zimbabwe’s radio stations.
Next is another group called Sadadz, which has released their second album after “Manzvakenzvake” called “Genuine Case”. I particularly like track nine which goes like this:“Kachembere kegudo kane vana vasere. Kaifamba kachikwira makomo. Kaifamba mangwanani kachitsvaka zvekudya.” It reminds me of my primary school days when the teacher insisted we all had to sing this song.
Visitors to Zimbabwe who have heard our musicians through the internet and are here for a short while would like to visit places where these artistes are performing, but because most of these do not have permanent venues where they perform, the visitors fail to see them and they go back to their countries disappointed.
In dancehall circles, a new breed of artistes has emerged but it is difficult to see them perform because they do not have established places where one is guaranteed to see them. At least tourists are guaranteed to see Oliver Mtukudzi, Sulumani Chimbetu, Jah Prayzah and Alick Macheso perform if they are in Zimbabwe because these are always in demand at the most popular venues.
Other popular artistes who need permanent places of performance include Dadza D of “Magetsi Aenda”, “Dairai Dairai” and “Uyu Ndiani” fame; Shinsoman of “Mawaya Waya” fame; The “Ita Seunononga” singer, Guspy Warrior; Winky D; King Shaddy, Sniper (“Love ye Musoja”) Storm, The “Joina City” singer, Freeman, Lady Squanda, Ricky Fire, Jiggaz, KillerT, King Labash, Peter Moyo and many others.
The unavailability of venues makes it impossible to accommodate all these sprouting artistes. According to one official from Nhimbe Trust, an organisation which has been looking at events in Bulawayo, many physical buildings can be turned into music venues. They say that the stagnation of growth in the arts sector has been blamed by many on the lack of performance venues.
If this is taken to mean the absence of the physical buildings in which performances can take place, then, according to Nhimbe Trust, this is not true. What is lacking is capital investment to rehabilitate the existing buildings, which are plentiful, and to put in place proper management structures that can stimulate grassroots development of the arts and sustainable performances by arts practitioners.
As one trustee puts it: “I was thinking of this as I took a mini-tour of Bulawayo’s youth centres, which are located in almost every suburb of Bulawayo and are run by the Bulawayo City Council.
“Opinion on Bulawayo’s numerous youth centres has, most of the time, taken the ‘glass is half-empty’ view. The common rhetoric is that the youth centres have been destroyed, by the economy, by the authority that runs them, in this case, the Bulawayo City Council.
“The factors that have led to the non-performance of youth centres are many, but the core of the problem is that art and culture are considered side issues by the Zimbabwean Government and, without proper buy-in from the Government, youth centres and other recreational facilities will remain desolate.”
“These places are now shells, white elephants so to speak,” one old man, who is part of the parents’ committee at Inyathi Youth Centre in Mpopoma, said when I asked. “These places used to be vibrant, they used to be sources of employment even,” he added with a sense of dejection.
The trustee goes on to say: “When I had passed through the centre in the morning, about 20 young men were playing soccer on the youth centre grounds. Passing through the same place in the late afternoon I saw a group of young women playing netball. I did not share the old man’s pessimism.
The youth centres can be put to good use and help the many youths who spend the day at the shops for lack of anything better to do with their time.”
Putting the youth centres to good use will not be easy, but it is an achievable task with buy-in from all the relevant stakeholders. And the Government, now with a separate Ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture, has to be the major player, otherwise we will be chasing the wind. Inyathi Youth Centre is bigger and is in a better state than the likes of Luveve Youth Centre, which does not have electricity or any furniture to speak of.
The trustee also says: “In a week I visited about five youth centres and I realised that almost all of them have ample space that could be turned into dance studios, theatre rooms, film studios or even music recording studios.
“It would be possible for the youth centres to have a proper management structure and to have resident dance, theatre, film, theatre and music instructors who can guide those who want to take up the arts as a viable career option. Maybe because I never saw the glory days of youth centres, I see them now as what they can become, not moan about what they used to be. When I look at the youth centres dotted around the city of Bulawayo, I see a glass that is half full,” he concludes.
The alternative to all this business will be for the Government to organise music festivals in every city where all the above-named artistes will give performances. This, if properly structured, will not only keep the youths busy, but will also certainly attract tourists in the same manner that people from all over the world in the 1980s used to travel to this country just to see music festivals during Independence celebrations.
It looks like Ministers Andrew Langa and Walter Mzembi have a job of work to do. Will it happen?
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