The Sunday News
Nigel Siziba, Sunday Life Reporter
Wingz food outlet has played a pivotal role supporting the Bulawayo arts industry through the Wingz Fridays rap freestyles and dance competitions.
The rap battles will see Bulawayo rappers battling out every week, showing their prowess in freestyle rap thus taping the raw talent that Bulawayo processes.
In an interview with Sunday Life, Shane Manjelo the owner of Wingz, said event is to give Bulawayo artistes a platform to showcase their talents.
“The purpose of these rap battles is to showcase the untapped talent in the City. We noticed that there was no platform for upcoming artistes to showcase their talents and our objective is to provide that platform,” he said.
This event has been running for three weeks and customers have already fallen in love with it.
“We have hosted four ciphers so far and we have had approximately five artistes per cipher so ten in total. Majority male but we have had 2 female artistes participate so far, we are looking for more female artistes and we encourage them to join, even our customers have shown a keen interest in the event and they are also to learn more about local music,” said Manjelo.
He also vowed that the competition will change the landscape of hip-hop in Bulawayo.
“This event will give Bulawayo artistes a platform to reach new demographics. Not only is this event beneficial for the artistes, it’s also beneficial to the business because artistes are pulling crowds which will purchase our products. What we are trying to prove is that working in partnership with local artistes is very viable in business terms,” he said.
