The Sunday News
Allan Foti, Sunday Life Correspondent
WHILE the region hosted stellar awards events towards the end of last year to reward local artistes for their work, the same winners failed to make the grade nationally and are nowhere in sight at the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe’s (NACZ) National Arts and Merits Awards (Nama).
The NACZ has announced the list of nominees for the 17th Nama edition to be held this month in Harare. A total of 96 nominees have been announced by the NACZ as nominees for the 17th Nama awards.
But there is no Cal_Vin, no Sandra Ndebele, no POY, no . . . no anyone among the nominees for Outstanding Male Musician or Outstanding Female Musician, nothing! Yet last year the town was abuzz with awards fever as the hip-hop awards came and went, the Skyz Metro Awards came and went as did the Bulawayo Arts Awards.
While the conveners of these notable awards cannot be held accountable for the failure of their winners to make the grade nationally, it is clear as day that the artistes themselves perhaps need to re-evaluate their careers and why they lack national appeal. It is perhaps time for them to ask themselves if they have the talent to compete with the best nationally.
In the old days, Bulawayo had Lovemore Majaivana, Fanyana Dube, Paul Lunga, Paul Matavire and Dorothy Masuka, the list is endless, who started out appealing to their locale, but soon achieved national and international notoriety.
While many will hasten to point out that perhaps they achieved this by moving to the capital and playing at for sold out venues, they will also point out that these artistes found fame after moving to where the action was and where all major decisions and success are guaranteed, this age-old argument has been used consistently by Bulawayo artistes whenever they have failed to make the grade.
They keep arguing that if one doesn’t move to Harare then they are unlikely to gain national recognition. But what they have failed to ask for are large crowds at their shows, they have failed to ask music fans what it is about their music they don’t “feel”.
Many a time, artistes have complained about low attendances at their live shows yet artistes from Harare come to Bulawayo and ‘‘kill’’ it at the same venues and in front of the same crowds. It is doubtful that Jay Prayzah or Winky D or whoever else has come to Bulawayo and been a hit, imported these audiences from Harare!
It’s the same people who just happen to like those guys better! Probably a more viable argument would maybe be the lack of equal radio playtime: this is one argument they could make and come out not sounding like cry babies all the time. It would also be prudent for them to look closer to home for their lack of national appeal; if you can’t appeal to your very own family, it will obviously be more than just a mountain to climb to appeal to your neighbour!
What they need to be doing is staking their claim in Bulawayo, making it hard for music fans to even consider going to a Jah Prayzah or Winky D show as and when it clashes with theirs. They need to up their game to a point where anyone coming to Bulawayo needs to not just be good, but extraordinary to pull a crowd away from a Jeys Marabini event or a Cal_Vin rhyme session.
Bulawayo artistes undoubtedly have loads of talent, what they don’t have is a product to sell. And once they have that missing piece of the puzzle, awards such as Namas will be crazy to not have more than a few token nominees from Bulawayo or the region.
Bulawayo artistes need to bite the bullet and start performing across the country to boost their appeal and promote their music nationally.
Why else does Aleck Macheso play in Esigodini? He understands that over and above his massive fan base in his Harare, he needs this “handful” of music lovers from deep in Matabeleland to become a truly Zimbabwean musical icon.
The only sphere that Bulawayo has continued to dominate is theatre, with Umkhathi and director Matesu Dube getting nominations, and so did actor Julian Tshuma. -@AllanFoti
