My encounter with Soul Jah Love

Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
IT was a slow Saturday night in Bulawayo, back in May, 2015 and I was going around the city looking for an entertainment spot.

The time was around 10PM and I had left Horizon Pub and Grill, meandering the streets along Jason Moyo headed to Café Baku when I heard a PA system blasting out some Zimdancehall tunes.

It was coming from Palace Hotel Gardens and this was unusual as the place would usually be relatively quiet on any given night. I zoomed in and saw dozens of people congregated at the green gate of the gardens and my curiosity got the better of me so I went to see what was happening.

When I got there, the crowd was rowdy, crying to get in and I asked myself why all these people were so desperate to get into the venue. A poster on the wall of Palace Gardens answered my question. It was Soul Jah Love; he was headlining a show there. The four bouncers like an opposing rugby team pushed the people trying to maintain sanity at the gate, but this was not to be.

Fans seeing that they could push their way inside, united, pushed the bouncers and the gate open.

Chance given, I scampered through into the venue like the others and quickly blended into the crowd.

I hadn’t watched Soul Jah Love live, I had heard the myth that he was at par or even better than Winky D, who many including me, believe is the best live performer in Zimbabwe.

So, this chance was not going to slip through my fingers. I was here to watch the man who called himself Chibaba, Chigunduru and Televizhan tings.

It was just how he said those adlibs that intrigued many-a-youth in Zimbabwe, it was effortless and comical, the way he pulsates his voice from high tones to a deep base when singing his music.

In the venue, the atmosphere was electric to say the least, fans were dancing, singing, drinking and wafts of smoke with smells mixed with cigarettes and mbanje permeated the air.

Almost everyone was waiting with bated breath to see Soul Jah Love and I quickly decided to get a vantage point, that was at the front, on the left side of the stage, so that I could swiftly see Soul Jah Love from the backstage as he enters.

After an hour, chants of Soul Jah Love, Soul Jah Love started growing and the crowd was becoming restless as they wanted to see Chibaba on stage.

The DJs did not make the situation better, they kept on asking the crowd, “are you ready for Soul Jah Looooove?” and a cacophony of screams, whistles and other noises would pierce the air in acknowledgement from the crowd.

This would keep them quiet as the crowd would temporarily forget and continue to dance to the music that the DJs were playing. Perhaps this happened for two 10-minute intervals then the crowd had had enough and they started singing, “Into oyenzayo siyayizonda”.

Backstage, people who looked like organisers and the bouncers who were shoved aside at the doors, started making frantic efforts to fetch Soul Jah Love from his room upstairs. After about five minutes, Chibaba was on stage and the place went wild. People were in delirium and I remember seeing a grown man shed tears of happiness.

The man of the moment stood on stage, looked at the crowd, soaked up the praise and in his deep, husky voice shouted, “Chibababababababababa, Conquering!”

That shifted the atmosphere up another gear! People looked like they would lose their minds. It was captivating to see how such a man gave pleasure and joy to people with just those two words over a clanky dancehall beat.

And that was it, in the delirium, Soul Jah Love had disappeared from stage. The DJ said Chibaba was on stage to show people he was there and he would perform later on. Again, people shouted and danced. After about two hours, the songs of disapproval started again. This time, their appeaser, Soul Jah Love did not appear.

This time, they did not wait for the DJ to say are you ready for Soul Jah Love. Mayhem ensued!

The first thing to be thrown on stage was an empty beer bottle. DJs quickly switched off the stage lights. This did not help as a rock was thrown at them. They hid behind their decks and it started raining missiles. Then I saw a chair, imagine a steel garden chair, flying through the air onto the stage.

While I was watching this unfold at what I thought was a safe vantage point, a stone whizzed past my head. I ducked and ran to the toilets behind the stage.

I met one of the bouncers there and he was scared for his life. I could hear thuds as the stage was being pummelled by stones. The noise died down after about five minutes and gingerly, I looked outside the toilet and saw that some people had left the venue. The stage was in a sorry state.

I also quickly made my way outside.

I was greeted by more havoc. They were looking up at the hotel rooms, searching for Soul Jah Love. Someone said, uyu Soul Jah Love, (there’s Soul Jah Love), pointing upwards. Insults were hurled at Soul Jah Love; they wanted their US$5 entrance fee back.

Stones started flying, aimed at the room on the second floor of the hotel. In no time, the whole hotel exterior was damaged. A kombi parked outside believed to have ferried Soul Jah Love had its windows damaged.

The rumour out there was that Soul Jah Love was unconscious (unokhile/akanoka) after downing three bottles of the illicit Bronco and smoked a pound of mbanje and passed out in his room.

The violence was brutal and unbelievable! But Soul Jah Love was not going to perform. The show was over so it was time to go home and I did. I feared for my safety and was also afraid that the police would round me up alongside the rowdy fans.

Following his death this week, it got me thinking. After speaking to music promoters, most said Soul Jah Love wanted his money upfront if you wanted him to perform. If you didn’t pay him his money prior to him taking to the stage, you were bound to have problems. Perhaps in this instance, there was a misunderstanding about money.

Perhaps he was not paid enough and he wanted to show the promoters that he was more than a star.

Or it was not about the money. Possibly some of his no-shows were because of his diabetes. Maybe, just maybe, he could not perform because his type one diabetes left him too weak to get on stage. Or him passing out in the hotel room was because he was in a diabetic coma.

One promoter I spoke to said Soul Jah Love smoked mbanje because this helped him overcome his diabetes when he was about to get on stage. For me, Soul Jah Love remains a mystery and he will be sorely missed in Zimbabwe.
Sleep easy, surely hausi Chinhu uriZvinhu.