INSIDE the dingy corridors of Mbare’s Matapi flats is interestingly where a group of four music producers have made big names in Zimbabwe’s music industry.
BY TAPIWA ZIVIRA
The names of Fantan, Level, SamChris and Ribhe have in the past years increasingly become associated with the current wave of Zimdancehall music, the rage of the moment in Zimbabwe’s music circles.
The studio from which the quartet operate is one humble corner in the second floor of an ordinary flat, where on taking the stairs up, one meets the poverty that is now associated with the country’s low density suburbs.
Inside the studio, surprisingly, there is a top-notch recording and mastering equipment that, according to Fantan, is a result of their hard work over the years.
“When we started, I had a chair and my bed in the booth and it was both my room and a studio, but over the years as our music became popular, we have managed to buy this equipment, and so far we have two cars for the studio and we hope to have instruments here,” he said, adding that they do not intend to move to a bigger place yet since the major reason for their popularity is their strategic location, where young musicians are trying their luck.
“We strive to be reachable. Anyone can come and record as long as they feel they have the talent and that is what makes us big, I think.”
The studio had a rather inauspicious beginning. Fantan, then a young man and a popular disc jockey in town, used his little bedroom in Matapi to hang out with friends, including young music upstarts who were eager to have their music played in public.
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“We would hang out after work and all those prospective musicians wanted to be with me, so that I would play their music at pubs where I performed. Eventually, we ended up establishing this studio and it became an instant hit,” he said.
The name ChillSpot was easy to pick because the flat where the studio is located ended up being a place where the boys “chilled”.
Some of the first major recordings were by the then little-known Killer T and Seh Calaz, whose songs became instant hits soon after their release, capturing the hearts of many young people fascinated with the then fairly new music genre in the country.
“Killer T, Ras Pompy, Soul Jah Love, Bounty Lisa, She Calaz all started their careers here, even before they were known out there,” Fantan said.
Having started with such musicians, who were to become popular, later it was game on as the studio, due to its location in Mbare where there are always many unemployed youths, was strategically located to tap into the talent of the unoccupied youths who were trying their luck in the studio.
Hundreds of songs have since been recorded and according to Fantan, on busy days, they can do up to seven songs a day. “On normal days we do four songs,” he said.
But how does ChillSpot remain popular? Fantan believes it is the way they make a blitz in distributing their music.
“We use all the digital platforms, Whatsapp, Soundcloud, YouTube and Facebook to send our music, so that it becomes popular and musicians can find shows. We have realised that people do not buy music that much anymore, so it is better that musicians get known through live shows.”
Notwithstanding the stories of drug abuse and harmful behaviour around studios like ChillSpot, it appears the preoccupation with music that it gives to frustrated young unemployed men and women outweighs the negatives. At least the music is playing on.
