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.

Community Radio Festival

The Media institute of Southern Africa (MISA)Zimbabwe in collaboration with (ZACRAS) Zimbabwe  Association Of Community Radio Stations,hosted a Community Radio festival in honour of various broadcasting stations in the country recntly.
The theme was "A decade of waiting,Give the communities a voice". and the festival comes in a time when talk is about to free the airwaves.MISA programmes officer Koliwe Majama said the media institute is making a statement."We are making a political statement.At a time whereby commercial radio licences are being licensed community ones are being ignored.Some of these community radios have been in existence for more than ten years but they are not recognised.So this is only to question and address the awarding of the broadcasting licences,"she said.
Majama added  that the stations have come together to celebrate the accomplishments achieved so far by stations,despite being denied licenses opportunities."We brought out all the community radio stations in the country.There are about seven rural and twelve urban.They exhibited their works at the Media Centre.These radios have no proper listenership and we can only talk of listenership when they are licensed.They were pre-recorded programmes which communities would listen to in groups".she said.
Radio stations that participated include Radio FM,Corah,Kwelaz,Wezhira and others.A training workshop targeted at well-equiped community radios with existing relations with the public also took place.The training intends to ensure that the community  radio stations come up with business plans which will then ensure sustainability beyond the funding era.
The issue of freeing the airwaves has been a hot topic with many private players acccusing the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) of being biased towards state-affiliated players.In November last year there was a call for commercial radio licences and they were awarded to AB Communications' Zi Radio and Zimpapers'  Talk Radio now Star FM making them the first two commercial private radios.
BAZ had received 14 aplications from different players commercial radio licences.In March this year Vox Media productions,owners of Radio Voice of the People (Vop) re-applied for the license after being denied last year.The organisation was among four potential broadcasters that were called for interviews but did not succeed.
Vox Media has since approached the courts to challenge the BAZ decision.Ministry of media,Information and Publicity Webster Shamu has been under fire from some parliamentarians over several issues to do with broadcasting.
They accused him of personalising the ministry and stalling the issue of media reforms.

ZambeziNews Advertorial

Zimbabwe needs a Saviour

Looking at the political deadlock and a lot of other hindrances that are causing the country not to develop it is clear that we need a saviour or two with supernatural powers in Zimbabwe.
We have tried putting trust in men and in politics and it seems as if the main agenda of every politician is power and money and on the other hand the people and the betterment of the community are not on their mind.The only thing that can be talked about that has been done by the politicians for the people is the attainment of "freedom and independence" and because there is nothing else they have done,that same fact of putting their lives on the line has been highly exploited to the maximum that we have nothing else to do but to live in the past.
Because we are in living in the past or in other words we are driving a car while looking in the view mirror and not in the front we have seen that we have made a lot of fatal crashes and there is something that is telling me that we have to brace ourselves for more is install for us.
It is obvious that we need a saviour,a sanctuary,someone to put trust in,someone who is not selfish and has the people's interests at heart,someone who would take a bullet for someone.
In search of hope we met up with Superman and Batman and they so happened to be taking a stroll in the neighbourhood.

Arts and Democracy Part 2

According to Dr Lovemore Madhuku " The world of Arts can never make sense if it does not relate to the day to livelihood of a community".He was quoted saying this at Performing Democracy workshop that was held at the Media House Centre  in Harare recently.

Dr Madhuku  said that Politicians are dictators by telling people what to do and what not to do and also controlling what to happen and what not to happen and the  role of Arts is to show the people that out of every situation there is an alternative.He also stated that the society is not free because of human effort and it is the role of arts to make an effort and make the society a better place.

Dr Madhuku said that in a society everyone has a role to play and no one is supposed to be told what to do but everything that is done is because of the pursuit of happiness.He said that everyone has the mandate to give back to the community and if you have a talent it has to be exploited  for the betterment of the community.

He concluded saying that "Yes indeed Art is very vital in Democratic Development because it is about life and how else can one talk about life without including Freedom and Democracy". 

 

The Arts as a tool for Democratic Development

According to Mr Mcdonald  Lewanika "Art is the ability to explain abstract terms to the viewer or listener nomatter what kind of art being used",he was quoted saying this at the Freedom's next steps:Perfoming Democracy Workshop that was held by Savanna Trust at the media centre on the 29th of June.

Mr McDonald Lewanika who is a self educated activist and also secretary for education and research at ZINASU was a guest speaker at the workshop.The workshop was aimed at discussing how art can be a tool for Democratic development.He said that art and Democracy have a direct relationship and that as a mater of fact people learn more in art and art platforms than in books.He said that the source of information for young people is art and that can be seen in New York with the New York Times having a problem in their sales of copy and they are saying that the big reason is that the youth are not having any intrest in the news and they are not buying the paper.

He said that people especially the young are afraid to engage into politics because they think that its a dirty game,its very serious and its dangerous and the role that can be played by arts is to make politics intresting and to engage those who are reluctant to politics.Perpetuating  Democratisation can also be done in a fun way like with using art.

He said that considering the political discord in the country,art cannot fully affiliate in politics because it has regretable concequences and there were even seen in the banning of plays in Bulawayo because of their content and also songs being banned on national radio and even on perfoming because of their content.Knowing the concequences on defying the "law" artists do not have to stop making the society a better place.

He further battresed his point saying that there is very few that can be done about reality so imaginery reality can be used to make the people know how reality can be like,meaning that the people in Zimbabwe have never experienced freedom and art has to show then what freedom is inorder for them to want it or to want to fight for it.Hesaid that artsits are the modern day philosophers and the are flag bearers for culture,beliefs and assumptions.Looking at countries like Tunisia a rrevolution was drive and inspired by a song called a letter to the president and this further prooves the influence of arts in advocating for democracy development.

In his conclusion he said that indeed art and democracy have a direct relationship.           

Zimbabwe's Hip Hop Future

its been a while now since Zimbabwe’s Hip Hop started getting more recognition,airplay and most important of all a following.Looking at a country like Zimbabwe that does not easily adapt to change of any kind it is fair to say that Hip Hop is now ready to be endorsed as  a well accepted Genre of music.This is because it is now getting fair airplay on radio and there are now community hip hop events (in which yours truelly Magamba has taken part in a fair number of arranging most of them).

Now the question comes back to the issue that does Zimbabwean Hip Hop have a good future? Will Zimbwabweans view Hip Hop as a form of employment? Will Hip Hop gain any sort of respect as it has so much gained in other countries?What is Hip Hop or what would the Zimbabwean people want Hip Hop to be?In a time like this in Zimbabwe something like Hip Hop might have different kinds of meanings.Some may say Hip Hop is swag,a waste of time and some old school cats even connect Hip Hop with the ever changing wirlwind political situation.This is definately not the ideal future of Hip Hop when it is supposed to be respected as a culture or a way to express oneself through urban culture.This negetive atmosphere around Hip Hop may even cause  it to huff and puff but with no avail.

People tend to put their trust in a person  for example when someone’s track is sounding hot they say”this cat is the future of Hip Hop”.But in actual fact is it a hot track that makes the future of a big thing like Hip Hop?Does it only take one person to make the difference in Hip Hop?Is this what happened in countries that have a successful Hip Hop platform?Some might say that studying what went on in other countries for Hip Hop to be recognised will definetly help,will it?In the movies or true life stories or music videos an artist records at home and then heads to the street corner and starts selling albums and all of a sudden he’s made man and has millions of dollars.I tried that and i will  never ever do that again because i had a good whipping of my life by the police.

It indeed is a debatable issue of what the future of Zimbabwean Hip Hop might be.But then again the issue that Hip Hop is here to stay in Zimbabwe is not open for debate because it surely is here to stay.We all love Hip Hop,we all feel that Hip Hop is the future and the future of hip hop is now the most important thing on our minds.A hip hop artist named RussyAmplifaya was also quoted saying “hip hop is an embryo which needs no abortion”.This means that there is something to look foward to though we do not know what it will really grow up into.....