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Tonderai Zvimba, Showbiz Reporter
BULAWAYO’s newly crowned king of rap, Asaph, had a bad day in office on Saturday evening at the National University of Science and Technology as students there as well as some members of the public threw missiles at him during his performance.
The rapper was warming up the stage for Zimdancehall chanter Killer T at a show that was held at the university car park to welcome new students.
Sadly for Asaph, he performed at a time the students were getting agitated as it was Killer T they were interested in seeing perform. So, as Asaph was now on his fourth track just after midnight, the crowd seemed to have had enough of curtain raisers and started throwing bottles on stage shouting “takuda Killer T (we want Killer T”). This did not deter the rapper who at that time, was performing his hit, Mambo.
He continued with his set for a while but after realising that more and more bottles were being thrown his way, he eventually decided to abort his act and left the stage.
The students continued running amok as they noticed that the main act, Killer T, was nowhere in sight even after they had pelted Asaph off the stage.
When the crowd eventually calmed down, Killer T took to the stage at about 1AM. When they saw their icon, the music lovers started celebrating. Killer T, who is riding high on his latest album – Mashoko Anopfuura – treated the crowd to some of his hit songs like Ndamuda, Takangodaro and Kufamba kwa Paurosi.
Speaking after the show, Asaph said: “It was a bit of a tough crowd but it was better than last year. Last year I didn’t even get past two songs so it shows that the love and appreciation is growing.”
He said that he had learnt that when performing at a Zimdancehall event, he needs to have a DJ who will hype the crowd by playing hip hop tunes.
“The lesson I learnt and my advice to other Hip Hop acts on performing for a mainly dancehall audience is the need to have a DJ play a Hip Hop set before a Hip Hop act goes on stage. A sudden jump from Dancehall hits straight into a Hip Hop set seems to be tricky,” said the rapper.
Local DJs Mzoe and Nospa however, had a good outing as they kicked off the night on a high note and kept the crowds on their feet with scintillating summer jams. Asaph had also impressed the crowd with his first three songs.
Online Reporter