By Kennedy Nyavaya
Jah Prayzah “is not a saint as most of you might imagine him to be” — musician Andy Muridzo was quoted telling a local weekly in March 2018 when he was parting ways with the now disbanded Military Touch Movement (MTM) after a wasted year-long stint.
Forget the Dherira hit maker’s ordinarily mischievous character, he played devil’s advocate exposing the “people’s favourite”, possibly to salvage what was left of his own fading influence, and could have been right to claim that the much loved JP was “not willing to assist others”.
Against all criticism for joining a perceived musical rival, Andy Muridzo had, like the other initial seven group members, imagined this would be a silver bullet to bliss.
However, just after three years the imaginary centre could not hold any further, prompting the perennial award-winning JP to formally break up what was left of the waning force.
“My dream was to have a movement that is driven solely by the ambition of the artistes and producers involved in it,” said Jah Prayzah in a statement.
“…I feel it is the right time to release them and also terminate all contracts that were in place.”
The reactionary move came after Nutty O’s manager claimed that they were splitting with the stable although the artiste unconvincingly refuted it later.
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However, the truth is that by last week there was nothing left of MTM, an apparent pseudo extension of the Kutonga Kwaro singer’s Third Generation band. In fact, there were no more contracts to terminate as the bulk of the group had jumped ship anyway.
Amidst conspiracy theories and heartfelt consolations going his way from all directions, the truth is that Jah Prayzah achieved his goals with the idea, even he admits the project “has been fruitful”.
“For us to grow big and be noticed outside, we need to have a label where everyone is working for a common purpose and cause. Rather than working individually, we decided to have everything under one roof,” his manager, Keen Mushapaidze, said in one of the many interviews before MTM’s genesis.
This could have meant that while the other artistes wishfully thought this was a move explicitly to boost their work, it was far from that. The biggest beneficiary was their new boss who in 2017 had just started to make huge leaps after a groundbreaking collaboration with Diamond Platnumz a few months prior.
The man expected to usher others into their dream careers was still on a path of self-discovery himself, this is why he soon collaborated with Patoranking and Jah Cure when Nutty O could have done better, Yemi Alade while Tahle WeDzinza sat on the sidelines and even Harmonize when Andy Muridzo was best suited.
Most of them had come on board, to get such links by association with arguably the biggest music name in the country at the time yet they only went as far as clapping for JP leaving their dreams.
But, no one should blame the Uzumba rhythm incarnate for the ostensibly self-serving behaviour because it was a featherbrained attempt from the start for other artistes to think that he would facilitate for them what he had personally fantasised for long just when it was coming to fruition.
Had common sense reigned supreme, the sham alliance should have been stopped dead in its tracks earlier.
The only other people to benefit besides JP were Ex-Q and DJ Tamuka — responsible for producing most of both singers’ hits in the past three years — but that is because they always had a special bond that saw them cross the floor together from Kenako and now establishing Mashroom Media.
It would not be amiss to believe that Jah Prayzah effectively used the vast talent under him to match the boss status of African powerhouses like Platnumz and Davido and push his brand far and wide at the expense of the MTM members’ growth and time.
This is despite him emphasising that the movement was “put in place to encourage growth and not for profit”. He also claims to not have taken any money from the members, but ideas and time they invested translate to money which never made it to their bank accounts.
Ultimately, MTM will be hard to miss because apart from photo ops and mere mention in JP’s songs mainly, it was much ado about nothing.
One can only hope that he takes a more sincere stance in empowering his future signings, seeing that he has matured in the game and should be beyond deceptive tactics.
