STREETS LIVE:PHAR

 Multi-talented MC,Graffiti Artist and DJ to name but a few showed off his talents scratching and playing music at the recent Streets Live event that took place at the Alliance Francaise in town lately..
Phar was born and raised in Bulawayo and he recently relocated to Harare and he is making a name for himself as a professional hip hop artist who can basically do anything..

He is one of the artists who will be at the much anticipated Shoko Festival that is going to be held in parts around town soon in September.

STREETS LIVE:EWOK and BLUE JEANS

Hip Hop flavoured Spoken Word South African based Artist EWOK and his band BLUE JEANS were part of the historical STREETS LIVE annual event held at the Alliance Francaise in Harare recently.
With his credentials and his rich history of performing arts and spoken word,it was an honour to be hosting this talented artist not only at the event but as a country at whole.
The Band Blue Jeans has members from different countries all around the world like UK,German and South African.
Interesting word-play and fancy rhyming scheme were the main attraction of the act.

  

STREETS LIVE:Outspoken and The Essence

Spoken word artist and poet/hip hop MC Outspoken with his band the The Essence were part of the historic second edition of the Streets Live spoken word event that was held at the Alliance Francoise in Harare recently.
The act included poems,spoken word and also vernacular  tracks and rhymes that connected with the large crowd of different ethnic groups and different races.
Tracks like "waiting for the bus"engaged the crowd as they sang along to the lyrics while the band was performing.
The band The Essence consists of four members who are Outspoken aka Alpha Intellect is the lead vocalist of the band,Ell-Roy aka L-Boogie Drummer,King Arthur the Bassist and Mallory on the lead guitar.

Minute Maid Launch New Brand Of Drinks

Minute Maid Company launched their new range of drinks called the "Minute Maid Pulpy Orange"at a colourful and entertaining event filled with comedy and dance at the Borrowdale race course recently.
Schweppes Zimbabwe Limited the mother company of Minute Maid boasted to having been the 20th country in the world to launch the Minute Maid Pulpy Orange and they also showed off their new state of the art equipment used in producing the Minute Maid product.

The main stream brand of drinks will be going for a dollar each and they will be attainable in supermarkets,fuel stations to name a few.

Miss Unaleya who is the Marketing and Public Affairs Executive stated and expressed the intentions of the company to keep on diversifying in-order to gain more ground and also to create as much employment as possible.
The theme of the event was "where is the pulp?"and they were performances from Zero Effect (dance crew),Dud Reggae Band and also stand up  comedians and there were a lot of refreshments that were being sponsored by the company itself.

Shoko Festival Artist Info and Profile

NATTY

The dreadlocked Reggae artist from North London posses a thoughtful take on what it is to be young in the inner city today with soulful accuracy.
He is born of a mother from Lesotho,a tiny kingdom that is found in the borders and an English father of Italian descent.
He learnt playing the guitar at 10 and he spent his teenage years creating beats for rapping mates.His bedroom mastery of music production earned him a job at premier recording studio Sphere,in Battersea,London.He worked at the studio for four years and everyone passed through that studio from Duran Duran to Mos Def,he says.He then picked up his guitar when he turned 18 beginning to write his own tracks during the studio's downtime.After leaving Sphere,Natty started gigging around London around London attracting a buzz that resulted in his starting the Vibes and Pressure Nights,a magnet for the underground music scene.Things quickly picked up for Natty with a recording contract with Atlantic Records,the release of "Man Like I",his debut album and it had a #1 hit single "Badman" in Japan.Thats when he embarked on his first European tour including gigs with Adele,Lee Perry and Baaba Maal.  
Natty's band comprises of his collaborater and guitar player,Jahmel,a bass and percussion player with Reggae roots and of course him on the vocals.
He is one of the international artist's who will be gracing the the much anticipated Shoko Festival.To follow him check him out on @nattymusic on twitter and Natty on Facebook.

Women Demand Media Rights

Influential women such as Human rights and media Lawyer Beatrice Mutetwa and chairperson of the Women Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCOZ) Virginia Muwanigwa  blasted the media for not  honouring the women's rights in the media while addressing journalists at the Quill Club recently.

Beatrice said that media has to give women a voice and it should work hand in glove with women human rights defenders to help stand for the rights of the women and create security for women.

Virginia said that they want to be seen as equal members of the community who need the same coverage of media that other men,members of the community are getting.

She said that the media has objective coverage of women and for instance if the Prime Minister would claim that women are clogging drainage system with the sand they  use when they clean pots,the media would ask them to comment about that issue and not to comment the more important issues like the new constitutional draft.

Beatrice also said the media has to empower  women and not undermine the women like what they do when they are covering only women for loitering and prostitution but they do not also say who they are loitering for who happen to be men.

They also said that they are disapointed in the media and they are hoping that the media will change towards the benefit of the women.

Taking Over The Town

Taking over the town is the theme for this year's Shoko Festival and looking at what it is promising to be,it is the appropriate theme for the occasion. The first Shoko Festival was launched last year and it was history in the making because nothing like the festival had ever happened.Also looking at how the Festival came to be,we can see that the event was born from Community events and Spoken word poetry slams and also live music and hip hop events.
The community had been taken over,the street corners had been taken over and with the way the movement was and is  growing the Town was the next victim.I am perfectly sure that the next theme of the Festival is taking over the country and after that the continent.