The Sunday News
Ntombiyolwandle Ndlovu
GOSPEL music lovers in Bulawayo will have an early Christmas present if plans by gospel songstress Abigail Mwembe to launch a live DVD album in the first week of December are anything to go by.
The album, titled Basking In His Glory also seeks to promote lingual diversity as it has some Tonga tracks. It was recorded last month at Bulawayo Theatre and it was mastered and engineered by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC).
Mwembe worked with a local gospel group Hossana from Harvest House Church.
Speaking to Sunday Leisure, Mwembe said that the preparations for the launch of the DVD were taking shape.
“We are still preparing for the launch of the album and so far everything is going well. There are no hiccups as of yet and hopefully by the first week of December we will launch the DVD album,” said Mwembe.
The female musician who is originally from Binga included some Tonga tracks in the album, a move that she feels is one way of promoting her language through music and dance.
“The 13-track piece features Tonga tracks and some songs that I did in Ndebele, English and Shona so as to reach out to a larger audience in spreading the Word of God. Some of the tracks included in the album include Masimdumiseni, Munamato unesimba, You are Jehovah, Tataleza, Tatamulunguzyu and Amuze kululeza,” said Mwembe.
Mwembe said she decided to do a live recording because it was now a trendy thing in the gospel music scene and she was moving with the times.
“These days live DVDs are an in thing. I have recently toured Zambia, Botswana and South Africa where I have done some performances and I realised that it is fast becoming a trend that we cannot run away from. I have also realised that people can easily relate to your music through live performances,” she said.
The 33-year-old Mwembe whose first two albums Makabongwe that was released 2001 and Tataleza which followed in 2005 did not do well in the market is confident that her experience gathered in the past decade in the industry will give birth to a new powerful project.
“People should expect a powerful and exhilarating musical show, my first two projects were a learning curve but now I feel I am now in a better position,” she said.
Mwembe however, admitted the quietness of the gospel music genre in the country’s second largest city.
“We might say the gospel industry here is quiet but as artistes I think the buck stops with us as we are somehow reluctant to push harder to respectable and recognisable levels. All we need is to rise and claim a space for ourselves,” she said.
Mwembe added that she hoped to follow in the footsteps of former gospel acts from Bulawayo, Christabel and Ruth Mapfumo who despite their short stint in the industry managed to make names for themselves.
