By Kennedy Nyavaya
When video director Vusa “Blaqs” Hlatshwayo climbed the stage to accept his National Arts Merit Award (Nama) award some two weeks ago, he surprisingly ended his passionate speech by mentioning that he was closing the music video production chapter of his career.
“This is an honour to me and this is also my goodbye to music videos,” he said before walking off the stage with a straight face.
The declaration drew winces from sections of the crowd which was generally in disapproval of the unexpected decision.
But, this was not the first time he dropped a similar bombshell although he failed to live up to his 2017 pronouncement.
By then he had just emerged as a creative from Bulawayo whose work was on a positive trajectory and two gongs (Bulawayo Arts Award and Nama) later one would think he has settled, but his heart is elsewhere.
“It’s time for me to move on to other things, this (music video directing) is not what I wanted to do initially,” he told Standard Style in an interview.
There are names that can only dream of the heights he has scaled in the business yet to him it has been “a distraction to what I actually intend to achieve in life”.
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“If I continue doing music videos it will be a distraction to what I actually intend to achieve in life,” he said, adding that the hiatus is indefinite.
“I want to stop for now and try to focus on the film side of things and as you know it takes a long time to produce a film, so I want to commit fully to it.” Without disclosing finer details, Blaqs said he was already working on a script for a production that would, in all probability, announce his arrival into the motion picture territory.
Having mesmerised music followers of late with music visuals, the Kwekwe-born artiste insists that he will not be passive baggage in the film industry.
“I do not want to get into the industry for the sake of it, but I want to add some value because I am not trying to be average,” he said.
“The guys in the industry have been doing very well, but there is something they can learn from me as much as I can learn from them too.”
