In a city that brags of being the hub of arts in Zimbabwe, it will be an overstatement to say artists there get bookings on a regular basis.
By Style Correspondent
Artists in Bulawayo do not live the royal arts livelihood as compared to those in Harare. They wait for promoters from Harare to bring seasoned performers like Winky D, Jah Prayzah or their colleagues from South Africa only to “beg” to grace the stage as supporting acts.
If not for “imported” gigs, Bulawayo artists would have to wait for annual events like Intwasa Arts Festival KoBulawayo and Kalawa Homecoming Party, which are seen as the only saviours though there hasn’t been anything amusing to talk about in recent years. As for Intwasa, it has become a fiesta that comes and goes with the city walls.
Fly-by-night festivals such as Ibumba, Bulawayo Art Fair and the Beitbridge International Festival of Arts which saw more Bulawayo artists invading the border town have come but died natural deaths, with the promoters pointing fingers at the ailing economy.
A Zimbabwean and South Africa-based house duo called Black Diamond is set bring life to Bulawayo arts if the ground they have covered so far in organising a music festival in their home city is anything to go by. After a successful launch of their debut album titled Gqom Life in Bulawayo in December, the duo is planning to host a festival dubbed Gqom Life Gardens on March 4 at Queens Sports Club. The fiesta which is expected to become an annual event will see performances from more than 20 local artists, including Asaph, Mzoe7, Skaiva, Leeknotic Mambo, DJ Liz, Slamma, Keezy, Indigo Saint, Vinnie King and many more.
Initially the event organisers had planned on bringing South African musician Tellaman but later opted for an all local artist event with only Harare-based rapper MC Chita the only out of Bulawayo act.
“Tellaman is no longer part of the event as previously announced. We deliberated on his booking fee which we felt was costly, we would rather invest in our local acts since the event is all about promoting our own music as Bulawayo artists,” said one of the organisers Jodrdache Saudan.
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“We need to support our very own before engaging foreigners. Tellaman is a great artist and it was going to be nice to have him work with locals and if possible do collaborations.”
Dropping Tellaman from the list sounds like a good idea that can benefit locals. However, having Tellaman would have gone a long way creating synergies within artists.
“We will channel the money meant for Tellaman’s booking to local artists. We want to grow the event to be the best locally organised and produced festival for locals by locals,” said Saudan.
Gqom is a dance sub-genre of house music which originated from Durban and popularised by new school artists such as Distruction Boyz, Babes Wodumo. recently the old skool musicians such as DJ Cleo and Winnie Khumalo have joined the band wagon.
