The Sunday News
Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
THE annual Winter Carnival held at Horizon Night club last weekend has been commended by up-and-coming artistes who described the event as a great stepping stone for their budding careers.
Inaugurated last year as a way to get people to enjoy nightlife during the winter period, the Winter Carnival has become a stage for those artistes who want to test their music skills while performing for a paying audience.
The line-up last Saturday featured Mawiza, Keddar, Prime Suspects, Guluva 7, Mzoe 7, Izikhothane and Prime Suspects who did not disappoint as they got the crowd on their feet. Award-winning rapper Calvin was the MC with Blaktroop DJs taking turns to mix tunes during intervals.
What made the carnival unique is that it mostly attracted youths, something which was a bonus for the up-and-coming artistes because the patrons went on to share their experiences on social media — in turn promoting the little known artistes.
The artistes also used the carnival to cash in on their music by selling some of their tracks by transferring them through Bluetooth or WhatsApp to fans as well as encouraging them to download their music on free music download sites such as Soundcloud and Datafilehost.
Not to be outdone at the carnival were the city’s top models who brought colour to the event as they strutted their stuff on the catwalk, often getting cheers from the crowd. To set the mood, revellers wore carnival masks in true carnival fashion.
Winter Carnival organiser, DJ Joe tha OG said: “The event is held to promote unknown artistes. That’s why we combined them with artistes who’ve made names for themselves so they feed into each other.
“We even discovered that most of the up-and-coming artistes were actually quite talented and needed more platforms like this one to shine,” said Joe tha OG.
He said it was disheartening how most locals mistook some music from these artistes as music by South Africans adding that people needed to be exposed more to local content.
“A house group Trykun has a track called Izolo that most clubs are playing and people are dancing to. Most people believe it’s music from South Africa while it’s from Zimbabwe, Bulawayo to be exact. So through such platforms as the carnival, we want to put a face to the music,” said Joe tha OG.
He said the Winter Carnival which was now in its second edition had grown from strength to strength adding that they had already begun preparing for next year’s edition.
