Contemporary musician, Andy Muridzo yesterday went home $11000 richer as he cashed in on sales of his new album, ‘Tichambotenderera’. Only 10 CD’s were sold at the launch, with the rest going on sale today. All the 10 where taken by businessmen and politicians who attended the launch which was held at the 7 Arts Theatre. However, we don’t know if all the money will come, as none of the buyers paid in cash, they were all pledges.
This trend has become common in the country, where businessmen and politicians attend album launches of high pro×le musicians and make pledges and then never deliver the goods after the show. We hope that the ‘Dherira’ hit maker gets his money. On top of the cash pledges, Andy also got an all expenses trip for two to the Victoria Falls courtesy of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, with a total value of $5000. Now to the album launch, the turnout was fair as the auditorium was half full, but the whole production of the show was just average. There was no vibrancy whatsoever – the event started off on a very dull note only to gain some momentum towards the end.
The programme was really disjointed and the hosts of the show, the Bustop TV ladies, only made things worse. Luckie Aaaroni, co-founder of Bustop TV just needs to tell his ladies to take a chill pill and go it easy. Nothing novel about the performances, if anything, all the Military Touch Movement (MTM) artists failed to impress with their solo acts, serve for ExQ who was saved by the fact that people know his tracks, but it wasn’t a goodnight for him either. The night only started to get exciting when Andy and Jah Prayzah joined the rest of the MTM crew on stage to perform their anthem.
The crowd ×nally popped out of their seats, that’s when we realised we were at an album launch concert and not a Star Brite preliminary round show. Jah then took to the stage, as a solo artist with his band and got things ×red up, much to the amusement of the audience. However, that was the biggest mistake.
The organisers should have let Andy start, because after seeing the original, the protégé, even on his big night, failed to outshine the master. When Andy then came on, it was really dif×cult to get anything worth making noise about from his act, because it was a replica of exactly what Jah had done. The album is now out, and it’s time for Zimbabwe to make its verdict. We hope Baba Keketso as Andy is known by fans will continue to soar with this new offering.