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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
A RISING unheralded Victoria Falls-based artiste Mary Tafadzva Munyai has won the online Ama2K Music Awards for her piano song Send’vile.
The 25-year-old Munyai, stage name Mary Tee ‘Usis WoThando’ feels the award which got her the R1 000 prize money, is a confidence booster in her music career which started in 2019.
She juggles between genres, mainly Afro-pop, house and soul with love issues being her main focus.
Ama2K Music Awards, a community social investment-driven project with interests in South Africa and Zimbabwe, are targeted at up-and-coming artists between the ages of 18 and 30 years.
Each artiste sends their song and a panel of judges adjudicates. Those shortlisted are uploaded online for members of the public to vote. Members of the public contribute 80 percent of votes while the other 20 percent is from the judges. The top three winners are announced at each competition.
The Ama2k music awards have helped identify young talent and help artistes gain access to platforms to distribute and market their music. The competition was started in December last year and voting closed end of February before results were released end of last month.
The winner, Usis’ Wothando walked away R1 000 richer for her efforts while Prince Tee Tlou was the first runner-up and was presented with R750. The second runner-up was Thabani Chipalo Khumalo who got R500.
One of Ama2k organisers Hazlet Dube said the next edition of the awards will be bigger and better.
“We hope the next round will be bigger and better. The focus is creating space for up-and-coming artists to showcase their talent,” he said.
Usis’ Wothando thanked fans for voting for her music.
“I would like to thank all the people that voted for me as this shows that I am growing,” she said.
Her song Send’vile is about a girl who says she is tired of acting for a boy to catch his attention as she loves him and hopes he would realise it.
Society expectations which generally considers it taboo for a woman to court a man stops her from approaching him directly and her only hope is that he would one day see that she loves him.
Usis’ Wothando said she is working on releasing a new song titled Khuza. It is being produced by DJ Bruno.
“I have a song that’s coming up about gender-based violence. The song applies to men and women because issues of gender-based violence know no gender. It’s about how couples should learn to be calm and not resort to violence to solve issues, but they should show love to one another as love concurs everything.”
Her music career started when she collaborated with Victoria Falls-born kwaito singer Obvidoh on a song titled Still Remember which was released in 2019. On her own, she has a song, Bumb’umuntu Wakho which topped the charts on Breeze FM for eight weeks last year, Sweet Love was produced by DJ Ace Cater, Can’t Cope Anymore, Uya Kuno produced by DJ Bruno, Ndipe Rudo which she did with Master Jaftaz and produced by Chuchu as well as Soze produced by DJ Nyder. – @ncubeleon
Online Reporter