Books

Leonard ZhakataThe power of music suspends every faculty and revolves the world around the object of affection.Musicians are power brokers – a fact universally acknowledged by corporates, politicians, suitors and others – hence their tag-along function in just about anything that takes influence to effect.Regrettably, when most musicians ditch the stage for the pulpit, they underestimate the influence of music and fail to turn it to their evangelical advantage.In some cases, a previously successful musician manages a wafer-thin post-conversion discography before going into early retirement.Several local musicians, notably Noel Zembe, Culture T, Zexie Manatsa, Mr Bulk, Jordan Chataika and the original female third of urban groove outfit 2BG, Rutendo Muchirahondo, had experiences which promp...

The Genesis CodeAn upsurge of evangelically-themed movies is challenging the near-monopoly of secular agenda in the film industry.More Christian producers are emerging to take back the power of the air, using trending digital tools and television to “tell the vision.”Creative concepts are being set to the template of pushing the gospel on the back of quality entertainment.“Many years ago, if we wanted to send a missionary overseas, the only option available was to put him and his family aboard a ship, and it would take weeks for them to arrive at their destination,” documovie evangelist Ray Comfort explains.“It wasn’t uncommon for family members to die of malaria or other tropical diseases. Taking the gospel to the world came with great hardship and much sacrifice.“While hardship and sacri...

Russel Crowe's NoahNoah, the biblically themed epic movie starring Russell Crowe, has grossed in over $343 million since it premiered two months ago.Money talks, especially if you are the crew behind a $125 million film. The movie is flinging its mojo, despite being an inordinate distortion of the Bible which it claims to be based on.Two other Hollywood versions of the gospel “Son of God” and “God is not Dead” (both of which I am yet to watch) have swept in close to $100 million combined.There is increasing fascination with religion at the box office but it is informed not so much by the conservative reconstruction of the Bible as it is by controversy and contradiction.With over $12 billion (8 billion more than Zimbabwe’s annual budget) being realised by Hollywood studios every year, accor...

Pastor GUrban contemporary gospel thoroughbred Pastor G’s stellar offering “Unstoppable Rhythm, Worship and Praise” is a fitting milestone for his fifteen years in the fraternity.The fourteen-track album, which is replete with mellow jams and powerful biblical messages, is a throwback to the early hits which endeared Pastor G with gospel music lovers.Most of the tracks affirm and celebrate of the beauty of the Christian identity, without reverting to self-praise (an error that must be exorcised from gospel music).“The Remedy” is already doing well on the charts but I am sure it will soon be overtaken by other tracks, especially “Tatora,” should they get fair rotation on air.Featured artists Mau Mau, Petronella Gobvu-Sengwayo, Marbel Madondo, Tatenda and Prophecy bring their own flair aboar...

Charles and Olivia CharambaZimdancehall has upstaged other genres to become the household phenomenon of the moment.While traditional genres are struggling for survival, dancehall is flinging its mojo into previously closed spaces.Ghetto chanters are staking their claim to the showbiz presidium, and the nation is reverberating along.It is the reinvention of culture – hence the growing number of debates occasioned by this latest urban movement.Issues of morality and durability have been raised as the downside of the genre, talking points which needs to be addressed for the good of both the artists and the audience.Whose interest, for example, does the propagation of drug abuse, violence and sexual immorality through music serve?What makes Zimdancehall music, in spite of its popular reception...

Charles Mungoshi and Dambudzo Marechera (Photo Credit: KwaChirere)A torrent of narratives has captured, with a flavour unique to each generation, the experience of being Zimbabwean.Our creative industries have secured through the mystic codes of art, a place for each set period in this thread of the great Zimbabwean tradition.We have been lately surfing back in time to retrieve the finest content from this tradition. Reception of yesteryear art, chiefly music, seems rebound.Sadly, as other creative industries are provoking attached memories in this web-powered hindsight, Zimbabwe’s literary canon of six decades, is barely visible.The trailblazing titles of the 1950s and 1960s are largely out of circulation. If not for rare copies on online shelves, there would be no trace of these importan...

Leonard Zhakata (Photo Credit: The Herald)Zora maestro Leonard Zhakata’s latest offering indicates a transition from liberation theology to prosperity gospel.Zora maestro Leonard Zhakata’s latest offering indicates a transition from liberation theology to prosperity gospel.A closer listen to two of Zhakata’s most popular tracks Mugove and Dhonza Makomborero point to this theological somersault.First though, a cursory rating of the tracks.The songs have enjoyed an even share of fanfare.Dhonza Makomborero off the latest album Zvangu Zvaita was voted the Cocacola Radio Zimbabwe Song of the Year for 2014.Dollar Boy and Chapter Yerudo off the same album took the second and seventh position respectively.The honour two months after Zhakata’s landed the Zimbabwe Music Awards (Zima) 2014 Song of th...

Frank EdwardsThe blending of gospel themes with secular lingo, beats or genres to enhance reception has divided opinion in Christian circles.The development has raised eyebrows among those who fear that the co-opting of “outside influences” compromises gospel purity.Whatever the case, code-switching the Bible and secular patterns of expression is in vogue.Proponents arguing that to gain broader appeal, Christian artists must unpack their message in the “language” that most people understand.The question is whether this latest form of artistic license, which gospel ministers are indulgent of in the name of evangelical capital, is good or bad for the message?Does code-switching import valuable add-ons or does it distort the essential import of Christian works of art?There is a danger of appr...

Memory Chirere (Photo Credit: The Herald)Memory Chirere’s “Bhuku Risina Basa Nekuti Rakanyorwa Masikati” on Saturday won the National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) accolade for the Outstanding Fiction Book, affirming the dominance of local languages in the category.Chirere’s debut poetry anthology was closely contested by Emmanuel Sigauke’s short story collection “Mukoma’s Marriage and Other Stories” and Weaver Press’s multi-authored “Writing Lives.”“Bhuku Risina Basa” is a light-hearted collection minted with familiar images, everyday language and incisive insight into some of life’s ironies.The anthology comprises 68, mostly short, poems stylistically traceable to Chirere for his painstaking simplicity, humour, understatement, musical effects and flippant brevity.Indigenous titles wh...

Albert EinsteinPerfection of means and confusion of ends, the tragedy of modernity identified by Albert Einstein, is fermenting across the mainstream art of our time.Contemporary art may be provoking more reception than ever, thanks to wide-scale streaming protocols, but it is alarmingly bankrupt of ethical value.Its mojo inheres not so much in matters of universal significance as it does in artificial allurements which are detached from the essence of life.Purposelessness, eroticism and despondency are staking their claim as the dominant expressions in this contagion of decadence where sensuality assails sensibility. It is pertinent to underscore the influence of art as a cultural vehicle before we can understand the dangers portended by its perversion. Art has a dual bearing on society a...