FOLLOWING a massive dancer exodus that almost grounded the dance group about three weeks ago, Mambokadzi has roped in the services of a band in an attempt to strengthen its shaky position in showbiz. Five dancers left the dance outfit citing poor remuneration but group leader Enisia Mashusha believes they will do better with forming a band. The group will now combine dance and music which will see it recording an album this week.
Mashusha said she had hired instrumentalists and would beef up the line-up with female dancers that are also talented vocally.
“At the moment we are rehearsing with two ladies and five male instrumentalists. We will be going into the studio next week (this week) to record our debut album,” said Mashusha.
“We have not yet decided on the title of the album but it will mainly be a sungura release with six songs. We have been working on the music project for sometime but we had not considered forming a band until most of the girls left last month.”
She said the major driving force behind the formation of the band was the paltry returns that they got as a dance group. Some contracts shown to Standardplus show that they could be paid an average of $80 for performances, which was not enough to cover expenses and remunerate dancers.
“The dancers who left the group did not understand that we were getting such low returns but we have to move on. I realised that the only way to increase the income would be through forming a music group because bands are paid more than dance groups at shows.”
Standardplus visited the new band at rehearsals and indications were that the new arrangement might see Mambokadzi find its footing on the entertainment scene again.
The group is not new to music since it released a video titled Ndotamba which was well received two years ago.
Mashusha said they would also do DVD for the upcoming album since they have always had strength in videos. The group has featured on a video of Joseph Garaka’s hit song Idya Banana in addition to working with a number of other local musicians during shows.

BY OUR STAFF

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