The Sunday News
Rumbidzai Mbewe, Sunday Leisure Correspondent
LAST month, on 21 November the first annual African Music Concert was born which saw artistes from different parts of Africa converging in South Africa, Johannesburg for the event.
Artistes from countries such as Kenya, Mozambique, Ghana, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe just to name a few, came together with the single purpose of demonstrating African unity, oneness and saying no to xenophobia.
Representing Zimbabwe at the concert was producer and singer Simbarashe Tagwireyi popularly known as Simba Tagz and DJ Ray Dizz.
In an interview with Sunday Leisure, Simba Tagz said the concert was an eye-opener for him as he got to learn one or two things from other African artistes.
“Performing alongside Africa’s biggest artistes was an eye opener for me as an artiste and a producer. Just being able to absorb the energy and different sounds and performing styles is something I took in and hope to emulate,” he said.
He said he was very happy to have been part of the concert because it showed that his work was being appreciated and has managed to penetrate the wide African audience. It was quite an honour for him to have been part of Africa’s biggest concert.
“Being part of such a big event is a step in the positive direction for me and I feel quite honoured. This is not a good thing for me only but I had the chance to represent my country hence showing people out there that Zimbabwe has artistes who have the capability to perform alongside Africa’s most celebrated artistes,” said Simba Tagz.
Samba Tagz is one of Zimbabwe’s artistes’ who is getting recognition in the African continent. His music is rocking the countries’ airwaves and some of his videos are played on Channel O. He said his success is attributed to the constant influence God has been to his life.
“It can only be God doing these wonders for me. He is the one who has placed me in these situations and has allowed me to network or work with many different people,” he said.
He urged his fellow artistes to take their time when doing their music videos. He said there was great need for people to come up with interesting concepts when doing their music videos so as to capture the attention of the people.
“Good things do not come cheap, that is one thing that we have to bear in mind as artistes. We have to work hard to yield good results. Some artistes have failed to make it big in the music industry because of the poor production quality (mixing and mastering) as well as the quality of the video. Let us not rush but take time to produce good quality music,” he said.
He has worked with several artistes in Zimbabwe and outside including Nigerian artiste Burna Boy.
He said working with Burna Boy was very interesting.
“I met Burna Boy when he had come to Zim for a show and I was one of the artistes who performed on that day. He began to gel with other artistes and wanted to hear our beats. We did a session with him over two days and he liked our work and that’s how I ended up producing a track for him,” said Simba Tagz.
