Music pirates in Harare had by Friday started cashing-in on unsuspecting Jah Prayzah fans through selling counterfeit copies of the musician’s yet-to-be released album titled Chitubu, The Standard Style can reveal.
By Kennedy Nyavaya
The development comes at a time the Uzumba-bred artiste released the title track last week, for the first time before the official launch of the full album, which is set for Friday in the wake of growing calls for him to revert back to his traditional sound.
While efforts to contact both Jah Prayzah and his manager Keen Mushapaidze were fruitless on Friday afternoon, Mushapaidze, in an earlier interview, told The Standard Style that the project contains 13 songs, and not the 14 written on CD sleeves of the pirated CDs.
“Chitubu [the song] is proof that we listened to our fans and it gives a hint on what to look forward to, which is an album that will make many people happy because it contains 13 good tracks,” he said.
Mushapaidze said the album contains a cameo with Kenyan Afro-pop band Sauti Sol, a song conspicuously absent on the pirated disc list that mentions Diamond Platnumz, Mafikizolo and Gonyeti as part of those featured.
Although it is highly unlikely that the songs would have been leaked, the possibility cannot be dismissed as the growing phenomenon has affected other established artistes, including Alick Macheso and Thomas Mapfumo, before.
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Meanwhile, the JP camp has promised to light up Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) with a memorable show come Friday.
“On the day [November 2], we want to do something different, not in terms of numbers because it is the same venue, which we have filled countless times already, but in terms of appearance where we want to have the best sound and LED screens among other things,” Mushapaidze said in an interview.
According to him, their marketing strategies in the build-up to the launch of the eighth album yielded good results as music lovers were already jostling for tickets for the show.
“People have started buying tickets and for the first time we have sold many well before time, we have never seen that before,” he said.
Jah Prayzah also took to social media platform Instagram to express his faith in the project while appealing for support from his followers.
“Indeed what a journey it has been and like they say, ‘you are only as good as your next album’, it’s so easy to forget the years gone by…” he captioned a collage picture of previous album covers.
“…It’s you [fans] who made all the previous seven albums hits and now I hope you will love Chitubu because you were on my mind all the time I was in the studio. #02_11 #Chitubu.”
In addition to releasing all the music online on the night, the event will also serve as a launch for two new videos, one which was shot in Binga while another is set for shooting in South Africa tomorrow.
