adminNgoni Dapira
THE Zimbabwe hip-hop awards pre-launch comes to Mutare tonight (Friday) at Golden Peacock Hotel. The Tazoita Cash Records label owner and Team Hombe hit-maker Stunner, whose real name is Desmond Chideme, will be headlining the pre-launch event along with rapper Pee Kay, real name Patrick Kahlari of the Ma1 (Tobhigwa nemamonya) hit-song.
Pee Kay is also currently riding high with ‘‘Show Me Love’’, his latest collaboration with Jamaican superstar Busy Signal, which has an amazing video which was shot in Jamaica.
Other supporting acts will come from Mutare’s hip-hop artistes among them Teqnic, Wito, G6, the Criot, the Samurai, Path and break-dancers like Unit Edge.
Top Harare-based club disc jockeys Dee Nosh and Chucknosis will add flavour to the event for the after party.
The spokesperson for the event, DJ Dee Nosh, said the Mutare pre-launch would kick off their countrywide tour as they aim to draw more entries and publicise the main hip-hop awards scheduled for December 12 at the 7 Arts Centre in Harare.
“This is the fourth year that the Zim hip-hop awards are running and we have been trying to make the awards bigger and better each year.
“We, however, realised that there was need to decentralise the publicity campaigns, which is why we are doing pre-launch shows in Mutare, Kadoma on October 25, Bulawayo on November 8 and Gweru some time end of November,” said the spokesperson.
Last year’s awards despite garnering some controversy about the selection criterion saw gospel rapper Mudiwa Mtandwa hogging the limelight and bagging most of the awards: the best video, best gospel and people’s choice awards.
Dee Nosh said this year they had partnered with all the commercial radio stations, Star FM, Power FM and ZiFM who play hip-hop.
Zimbabwean hip-hop has been failing to break through over the years both locally and internationally.
While originality has often been criticised to lack in most Zim hip-hop artistes in the past, of late there are some game-changers coming up and Dee Nosh said people should soon prepare for the awakening of Zim hip-hop.
Online Reporter