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NewsDay

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A new dawn for ghetto’s aspiring artistes

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THE rise of Zimdancehall can, without doubt, be attributed to the hard work young producers in the ghetto put up with, setting up makeshift studios

THE rise of Zimdancehall can, without doubt, be attributed to the hard work young producers in the ghetto put up with, setting up makeshift studios with limited equipment and often inadequate sound engineering skills.

TAPIWA ZIVIRA ONLINE REPORTER

For the young producers, from Mbare to Highfield, to Budiriro to Mufakose and other high-density suburbs, it remained their passion for music that drove them to have aspiring musicians record for little or no charge.

The newly renovated Bodyslam studio
The newly renovated Bodyslam studio

Before long, youths, both in and out of school, were hanging around the studios to try their chance on the microphone.

So under-equipped were the studios that some only had a sheet separating the producer and the musician while the recording equipment was usually limited to 90s computer sets and outmoded sound and recording devices.

It was, ironically, from those kinds of studios that the now popular artistes like Soul Jah Love, Tocky Vibes, Killer T, Seh Calaz among others emerged to shake the music industry.

Nonetheless, producers remained unrewarded, continuing their work in the poorly equipped studios that limited their scope to Zimdancehall.

The situation was compounded by the lack of financial or material support to the spirited producers as music promoters seemingly focused only on the musicians who would have made it to the limelight.

As a result, these accessible and affordable ghetto studios became synonymous with dancehall music, a situation that shut out those aspiring to sing other genres as it now only seemed the only way to become a known musician was to use the dancehall channel.

bodyslam studio1

The quality and diversity of music, with no doubt, got compromised as often up to 50 musicians jostled to ride on one dancehall riddim under one producer.

The snowball effect was that becoming a hip-hop, rap or R ’n’ B artiste was a thing for the “elite” or rather those who could.

But Bodyslam Records in Highfield — which has so far made a huge mark in uplifting Zimdancehall musicians — has made a plan to correct this imbalance.

Bodyslam Records this week reopens a modernised studio that has the capacity to record a wide range of genres, from sungura to hip-hop.

The move is likely to see the emergence of new voices in other musical genres, a refresher from the monotony that Zimdancehall is gradually generating into.

Simbarashe Chakare of Bodyslam Studios said supporting talent from local artistes is the main focus of the ghetto-based outfit.

“After opening the studio early this year, we feel we have done much to give back to our community as we have afforded an opportunity to hundreds of aspiring musicians, and now we have diversified and we hope this unity and commitment continues endlessly from both ends as we believe in One Love to all humankind,” said Chakare.