The Sunday News
Thembinkosi Khumalo, Sunday Life Reporter
WHILE xenophobic fires continue to rage in South African societies, where immigrants are accused of taking locals’ jobs, in the arts in Zimbabwe, and particularly Bulawayo, tables seem to have turned, as the country has seemingly turned into the proverbial greener pastures for artistes from that country.
The recent influx of artistes from South Africa, particularly musicians has been an irony to the whole debate about foreign nationals in South Africa.
In an interview with Sunday Life, a multi-award-winning playwright, and arts administrator, Raisedon Baya said, “I think we have a serious problem; we have South African artistes coming on a daily basis or after every two days performing here and getting headliner preference.
If you bring two South African artistes and you have Msiz’kay as the supporting act the idea should be that maybe after six months, he should be able to have a show on his own, the idea being to develop. He cannot be a curtain-raiser for five years. I think promoters should have a little bit of development to local arts.
Msiz’kay
“I think every week we are taking money that we are making here outside the country. It is not cheap to bring those guys, so it actually means they are taking money out of the country, then how do we develop as a sector? Right now, we are not developing, our own locals are not going anywhere, if we are not developed here, we will never export any of them.
“Our biggest weakness at the moment is that as an arts sector we are disorganised, we have no structure. A proper music union should protect our local artistes. I think promoters are taking advantage of these weaknesses and we cannot blame them because every businessman is thinking of making money.”
“On the business side especially in manufacturing, there are laws that protect local products. We need something like that and figure out how we should protect our local artistes.
If we do not have protection, other people will walk into the country, take the money and go, money that is meant for the artistes here must find a way to say half of it if not 75 percent of it must go to locals,” he said.
