Musicians race to drop festive season offerings

Tonderai Zvimba, Showbiz Reporter
Musicians, both locally and regionally are in a rush to release their festive season offerings as they anticipate to cash in during the busiest time of the year.

The festive season is usually jam-packed with lots of entertainment and any musician worth their salt will be fully booked during this period.

But in order to get bookings, they must be relevant at that time. And for one to be relevant, they must have at least one hit track that is released anytime after August.

This explains why there has been a rise in album, single and video releases/launches from varying artistes in the past couple of weeks.

Chief among them have been Zimdancehall artistes Soul Jah Love, Seh Calaz and Jah Signal.

Joining this bandwagon are Jah Prayzah who launched his album – Chitubu and Winky D who dropped a new single and video yesterday.

With these releases, the artistes hope to carry over their fans through the festive season up to 2019.

Once the music is embraced, there will be high demand for the musicians’ music during the festive season leading to them getting a series of bookings from different promoters.

Jah Signal who some say was the man of the year in Zimdancehall music circles with his single Sweetie which has become known as Stonyeni launched his album, Jaya at Club Sankayi in Harare on Wednesday and already has shows lined up across the country in December.

The same applies to Jah Prayzah who has a show lined up in Bulawayo in December.

Gospel musicians have not been left out as renowned gospel musician Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave who had been on a hiatus released a single titled Kumsoro last month.

She is now working on a DVD that will be released next month which she said will be a Christmas gift for her fans.

Another gospel musician Tembalami also has a DVD The Fight lined up for December. He will also embark on a nationwide tour.

In South Africa, it is the same story as artistes Distruction Boyz and Dlaldla Mshunqisi have just dropped their summer/festive season albums which are already blazing the airwaves.