Category: Uncategorized

Mathias Mhere Mathias Mhere’s fourth album arrived last month amid a flare of controversy. Whether speculation over Mhere’s personal problems has attracted, diverted or distorted emphasis with respect to the album, it is difficult to tell. It is equally difficult to explain the popular appetite for the sensational at the expense of the substantial. But… …

Leonard Zhakata The power of music suspends every faculty and revolves the world around the object of affection. Musicians are power brokers – a fact universally acknowledged by corporates, politicians, suitors and others – hence their tag-along function in just about anything that takes influence to effect. Regrettably, when most musicians ditch the stage for… …

Pastor G Urban contemporary gospel thoroughbred Pastor G’s stellar offering “Unstoppable Rhythm, Worship and Praise” is a fitting milestone for his fifteen years in the fraternity. The fourteen-track album, which is replete with mellow jams and powerful biblical messages, is a throwback to the early hits which endeared Pastor G with gospel music lovers. Most… …

Charles and Olivia Charamba Zimdancehall has upstaged other genres to become the household phenomenon of the moment. While traditional genres are struggling for survival, dancehall is flinging its mojo into previously closed spaces. Ghetto chanters are staking their claim to the showbiz presidium, and the nation is reverberating along. It is the reinvention of culture… …

Leonard Zhakata (Photo Credit: The Herald) Zora maestro Leonard Zhakata’s latest offering indicates a transition from liberation theology to prosperity gospel. Zora maestro Leonard Zhakata’s latest offering indicates a transition from liberation theology to prosperity gospel. A closer listen to two of Zhakata’s most popular tracks Mugove and Dhonza Makomborero point to this theological somersault.… …

Maurice Vambe, George Kahari and Memory Chirere (Photo Credit: KwaChirere) “Nothing good can come out of Zimbabwe,” has become the byword of the day. We lack an aggressive estimation of our potential as a nation.Pessimism runs the tapestry of our national outlook. We justify this self-deprecation by playing second fiddle to others on many platforms.… …

Kwame Nkrumah Poetry with a nationalist accent is one of the most enduring monuments of African literature.  A thread of love letters – impassioned, potent, poetic endearments to Africa – was unwound at the high tide of liberation. Europe has commissioned poet laureates to give her official occasions the rhyme factor. In Africa, a coterie of… …

Creatures at the Top Book: Creatures at the Top Author: Stephen Mpofu Publisher: Spiderwize (2012) Stephen Mpofu belongs to that rare breed of Zimbabwe’s pioneer journalists for whom the newsroom was a vocation not a default option. Back in the day, journalism did not occur naturally on the inventory of professions available to blacks. By… …

Writing Revolt Book: Writing Revolt Author: Terence Ranger Publisher: Weaver Press (2013) Terence Ranger’s latest memoir “Writing Revolt: An Engagement with African Nationalism, 1957-67” is a vastly riveting account which tags the historian in the mid-century revolutionary ferment. “Of the making of many books about Zimbabwe there seems to be no end,” Ranger observes in… …

Half of a Yellow Sun Book: Half of a Yellow SunAuthor: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Publisher: Fourth Estate (2006) Half of a Yellow Sun sealed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s credentials in the canon of great African literature. The novel is not only a riveting stroke of hindsight but also a compendium of pertinent African questions. While most writers mellow… …