The Sunday News
Raisedon Baya
SHE won the Starbrite talent content some years ago and no one paid attention. She was winner of the Best Female Artiste award during the Skyz Metro awards last December. Again many people did not take notice. Recently she was a winner at the Star FM awards. Few people noticed. But notice it or not Seagirl’s star has been rising. One of the people to notice her were the promoters of the ZITF Shutdown concert which featured probably the best of music in the form of Jah Prayzah, Winky D, ExQ and the like. Seagirl was part of the line-up and she even appeared on the poster. To many of us she had arrived. She also thought she had until she went on stage and she got a baptism of fire when the crowd started singing the infamous Highlanders song “into ’yenzayo siyayizonda’’. And boy she reacted. She threw the fire back at the audience and even told them off.
Many people have said what they have to about Seagirl’s outburst. Right or wrong, it is their opinion. And everyone has a right to their opinion. During the discussions about her outburst I observed quite a few assumptions. First, there is an assumption that there is a Bulawayo audience and that naturally it must like all things Bulawayo. This has made so many Bulawayo artistes feel so entitled to a support base that they have not even worked for. In my opinion there is no Bulawayo audience. An audience is an audience. They come to shows for specific arts products. And on that evening that crowd had specifically paid for Jah Prayzah and Winky D. It would have taken a miracle, maybe something akin to Eliot Moyo’s resurrection, to like some other artistes on the night. Had Seagirl been aware of this fact she would have not screamed at the crowd. It was not her crowd. She should have tried to win a few hearts. Operative word being a few.
Secondly, there is always an assumption that audiences generally don’t like Bulawayo artistes. Many people outside Bulawayo now think Bulawayo artistes wear the victim jersey even in their own backyard. Audiences don’t like or hate an artiste’s product because of language or tribe or place of birth. Audiences like products. They have specific tastes and as artistes it is up to us to find that taste and feed it. I think the biggest mistake local artistes make is to expect that “Bulawayo audiences will love them because they are Bulawayo artistes.” This mentality will have many frustrated and silently screaming “Bulawayo, I’m your child. Why do you hate me so much?” And the audience will go on loving what appeals to them. So artistes must be constantly searching for that formula to make audiences not just in Bulawayo, but anywhere their art goes like them and their art. That is all any artiste should be striving for. As artistes I think we must disabuse ourselves from this notion that we are owed success or respect or opportunities. The bottom line is we all have to sweat it out, put up the hours, prove beyond doubt we deserve it more than others. That is the only way to win audiences.
Was Seagirl wrong in screaming at the audience? She was not wrong. The screaming was just a symptom of the frustrations most local artistes are suffering from. They are boiling inside. Go on social media and other platforms and read about their anger. They feel aggrieved. They feel owed. They feel unappreciated. Any local artiste would have done what Seagirl did. I think fortunately it was her as she got her 15 minutes of fame. The whole week we talked about it in various platforms. Now everyone knows who Seagirl is. In show business we say there is no bad publicity. It depends on how you use it. I want to believe Seagirl is coming out of this stronger and more noticeable.
