Online Reporter
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
FOR several years now, Band Fusion has become a name synonymous with nightlife in Bulawayo.
While they are the same band that has serenaded people on joyous occasions such as weddings or birthdays, it is around the city’s pubs and nightspots that they have won a lot of hearts.
Covering music from greats such as Oliver Mtukudzi, Lovemore Majaivana and Busi Ncube among countless others locally and internationally, Band Fusion has provided the soundtrack to many wild and fun nights for revellers in the city over the years.
Yet, despite their stellar reputation as an impeccable band that knows how to get a party started, the band’s performances have often left a sour taste in the mouths of some fans.
Some believe that the band could and should be doing more. Much more.
While they might cover the classics efficiently some have always believed that the band should use the following it has managed to build over the years to give the world a taste of their music.
Last week, Band Fusion finally listened to the clamours from their fans, releasing their long-awaited single Asibuyeleni Emathandweni. Unleashed on Valentine’s Day, the love-themed track featured Austrian-based star Vusa Mkhaya.
While Valentine’s Day presented the perfect opportunity to release the group’s new single, the band’s drummer and vocalist Lungile Ndlovu told Sunday Life that the new song, which is part of a project that will be rolled out one single at a time, had been a long time coming.
“Our project just takes concepts that have previously been there and then records them. For example, the song was made by our lead guitarist during the Covid-19 days. He came up with the melody, Vusa Mkhaya then laid his verse, and then as the band we had to do the rest of the beat and put everything together. So such initiatives are what has shaped this entire project. We do covers but we also recognise the need to get bigger and record our music,” he said.
Featuring Mkhaya was deliberate, said Ndlovu, as he was a figure who could properly introduce them to the rest of the Bulawayo arts community.
“The song features Vusa Mkhaya and we feel like it introduces us to the arts community. We have been on the scene and some might know the name but in arts circles, we felt that we needed a proper introduction and that feature carries the appropriate weight to do so. We also know that some of our fans have been waiting for years to hear from us. They have had us doing covers and they are curious about what we can do on our own,” he said.
While the group already has a full project ready, Ndlovu said they had decided to drip-feed their fans new music over the coming year, as they felt releasing everything at one go would be counter-productive.
“We decided to release the songs as singles because we have taken a backseat in the industry and have been monitoring things from afar. What we noticed was that we see a lot of quality songs, very good music being released from Bulawayo but most of them don’t seem to make an impact. People invest a lot into the launches, hype up the songs everywhere but the albums just seem to vanish afterwards. So, we thought we could do something different for a change. We prepare the ground for a single by hyping it up before its release, we hype it up after and we don’t release any other song until we have achieved the numbers that we want on that particular track. We then prepare the ground for the next release. We have a full-year plan that will keep listeners throughout the 12 months,” he said.
On any particular night when they are on stage, Band Fusion can go from jazz to mbaqanga and even dancehall. All these genres are filtered through the band’s expert instrumentalists, who seem capable of taming any genre and putting it into a format that is palatable to the “mature” crowds that Ndlovu said are usually their staple audience.
This, he said, would be a theme that would continue in their new music.
“We have not put ourselves in a box so we didn’t stick with one genre. We are constantly looking for new sounds and this project was very experimental. This is not intentional but the band’s DNA just comes out in the music that we make. I say this because when we play covers, we play music from artistes from a wide array of genres. So when one listens to our music, they really cannot define us as an Afro Jazz or a dancehall group. We are also multi-lingual so you will find that some of our songs are written in English, others are in Ndebele and some are in Shona. This is also in line with the music that we play during our gigs because we cover songs that appeal to all the people of Zimbabwe and even beyond,” he said.
Despite hoping from one sound to the other, Ndlovu said Band Fusion wanted to maintain the sanctity of using live instrumentation in their music.
“The one thing that is constant in the music will be the fact that people will listen to live instruments. We might have one or two programmed elements but for the most part, the music will incorporate the live instruments that people have grown to love us for. During our live shows, we play hip-hop, we play amapiano and other genres so it has taught us that whatever the genre, we have to bring it to life using live instruments and that is something that people will hear from our music,” he said.
Ndlovu said while they had conquered nightlife in Bulawayo, they were also eager to expand their horizons and give a taste of Bulawayo to those who had left the country and were craving for music from home.
“We want to tap into the diaspora market. People from Matabeleland have a certain culture, whether they are black, white coloured, Shona or Ndebele. If you’re from the region you have a certain cultural education that you take with you wherever you go. However, we feel that when people organise gigs for people in the UK, there’s rarely representation from artistes from this side. So, we are saying, who plays for those people from Matabeleland who want to hear sounds from this side of the country while they are in the diaspora. So, we want to grow and become ambassadors of the music from this region,” he said.
