He is popular in the country and abroad and an award winner revered among poetry and music lovers. He can be aptly described as a premier performer and outstanding dub-poet.
Albert Nyathi has seen it all in the local arts industry as a writer, poet and musician of note.
On Saturday, the talented performer will give his fans another taste of his expertise when he performs at NewsDay’s 1st Anniversary Bash.
The fastest-growing daily celebrated its anniversary on Tuesday and the concert, which will be preceded by a cocktail for invited clients and stakeholders, is a way of celebrating the paper’s great success.
Nyathi is set to feature in what will be a double act, first performing as a poet and in a musical collaboration with Bulawayo Kwela Calabash.
“I made a conscious decision not to perform in public where people are drinking or in clubs where people are drunk because I want them to listen to my words,” said Nyathi.
“However, performing at this event is an honour because it is one of the concentration-specialised events that is more like a festival.
“This event to me is just more like any other revered festivals that we know in the country where there is family entertainment.
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“My apt description is that I am a family entertainer and I will be more exquisite, fresh, refreshing, bold and innovative and that’s the Nyathi you must expect to see at this event.”
The gig will also witness a headline performance by legendary musician and superstar Oliver Mtukudzi, Afro-jazz sensation and bass guitarist Edith WeUtonga, Munya Mataruse, Donald Kanyuchi and Bulawayo Kwela Calabash.
Bulawayo Kwela Calabash will feature the music of the 50s and 60s dominated by the kwela genre characterised by the pennywhistle.
Nyathi collaborated with Bulawayo Kwela Calabash in an exclusive show at this year’s Harare International Festival of the Arts where their performance left audiences clamouring for more.
Born in Kezi in Matabeleland South, Nyathi is one of the few full-time artists who graduated from the stormy corridors of Zimbabwe’s sole university then in the 1980s.
He mastered traditional praise poetry at school. As a university student in the 1980s, he became very influential within the student union and often spoke at rallies.
He started to write his own plays and poems, inspired by the national freedom struggle.
Later, he gave up his career in government service as a senior member of the National Arts Council to concentrate on performance poetry and the development of youth training programmes in Harare’s townships.
Around 1990, he started fusing his poetry with music in order to reach a wider audience. He gives voice to sentiments that people are often afraid to express in a public arena.
The poet bonds his audience together in shared feelings on various topical issues.
Nyathi reaches out to and embraces everyone with his concerns which reflect those of his audience.
