Mannex going beyond music

months after Zimbabwe’s independence on July 10 1980 in Joburg Lines, Mbare, Harare.
He is a true ghetto boy who has proved that there is a link between coming out of Mbare and success in music.
His latest group, MoFamilee, are already showing signs of reaching the top as evidenced by their latest eight-track release of Zim-reggae fresh from Monolio Studios.
The initial production of this CD was done by MacDee and Benny Beats in Warren Park, where Mannex now lives.
I have had a good listen to some of the tracks and I found them startling, but let me not pre-empt your appetite for good music by going into detail.
All I can say about this CD is that the DJs are certainly going to like it. In 2002, Mannex formed his first music group, Bootkin Klan, which spent a long time rehearsing in the Magamba Hall.
The group was mainly performing in Warren Park and with Bootkin Klan he released his first album “Tsamba” (Letter), which topped the charts in 2003.
The group went on to release another hit in 2004 — “Anoti Nyo Ndiani?” (Who Dares?) which became the top African rhythm of the year 2003.
Mannex went on to join The Pied Pipers of the “Ruva Rangu” (My Flower) fame the following year.
In 2005, Mannex broke his ties with Bootkin Klan & Pied Pipers to do a solo project which resulted in the release, through video, of an urban groove album featuring the hit song titled “Munhu Mutema”, which made waves on TV.
In 2007 he proceeded to be the opening act for the 2000 Best Afro Jazz Artiste Award winner, the late Dumi Ngulube, and featured on his album “Dumi Meets Flash” (Gordon Matekedza).
In 2008, Mannex was invited to join Transit Crew as a lead singer, replacing the late Culture Tee and Emmanuel Frank.
This was a dream come true for Mannex, being invited to join a legendary reggae group in Zimbabwe and, above all, to be their lead singer.
Mannex felt honoured and excited by this gesture and he immediately accepted the offer since such opportunities are hard to come by.
In March 2009, Mannex & Transit Crew released an album titled “Unity”, which included the “Tsamba Reply”.
In May, 2009, along with other artistes from Warren Park who are involved in music (traditional and urban), sculpting, poetry, batiks and painting, Mannex established what is now called Warren Park Arts & Kulture Development Association (WAPAKUDA).
The association has since then held a number of Culture Day celebrations, fund-raising activities and clean- up campaigns showing that Mannex is not only involved in music, but also in projects which directly benefit communities in Zimbabwe.
For the past three years, Mannex has visited the 99 sculpting families of Tengenenge, 20 kilometres from Guruve, where he has composed a song about Tengenenge and performed for the villagers.
The last performance was held on March, 2012 with his new outfit, MoFamilee.
During the period September to December 2009, Mannex travelled to the Czech Republic in Europe to meet his new in-laws.
This also presented him with the opportunity to further explore his music career. And while in Europe, he collaborated with Krystof Koenigsmark & Petr Metelka (Telka), who are also DJs on Czech’s Radio 1, and friends on a music project titled SEMTAM.
This gave Mannex an opportunity to promote his music further and also to use a state-of-the-art recording studio.
In 2009, Mannex travelled to Ghana for a year which also presented another great opportunity to learn about the culture and music of that West African country.
Mannex found Ghana to be a great country with a deep history as the first independent country in Africa.
The year spent in Ghana saw Mannex meeting and collaborating on a number of musical projects with artistes such as Samini and Blackrasta and pianist Opoku Mensah which resulted in a song “Transformation” which Mannex dedicated to his wife, Marketa.
In April, 2010, Mannex returned home more confident and ready to hit the music scene in Zimbabwe again. Transit Crew was there for him, so he rejoined the group.
That year they got the opportunity to share the stage doing backing vocals for Sizzla Kalonji and collaborating with Yasus Afari at Hifa 2010 where he and colleagues J. Farai, Chaza and Rootsman Spice of Transit Crew joined Yasus on the Garnet Silk & YASUS track “I Can See Clearly Now” originally sung by Jimmy Cliff.
It was a dream come true once again where Mannex gained a lot of knowledge and inspiration from both artistes’ styles and presentation.
In early 2011 Hifa saw Mannex again, this time on stage with Czech friends SEMTAM. In late 2011 Mannex recorded a single entitled “Vavengi” with Transit Crew currently featuring on the “Transit Crew singles” CD which was released in September 2011. The song “Vavengi” was complemented with a video posted on YouTube.
Just before the end of 2011, Mannex left Transit Crew, which according to Mannex, was not an easy decision but the time was right.
His last show with the Crew was on December 16, just a few days before departing to the Czech Republic where he was able to do four performances with SEMTAM.
It was not until the beginning of this year that Mannex formed the MoFamilee Band.
The band members are sisters Flo and Mary on backing vocals, Ras Inno on bass, Ryan on guitar, Prince on drums and Slash T on keyboards.
Mannex and MoFamilee’s vision is to celebrate the African culture and way of life and bring families and their visions together.
Mannex recently did a collaboration show with Mathias Julius at The Basement in Harare and the few people who witnessed this performance agree with me that this rising star has a bright future.