BY WINSTONE ANTONIO
SOUTH AFRICA-BASED Zimbabwean hip-hop sensation King98 said he was happy to be reaping the rewards of investing in his music career as he reached a milestone with his latest single Kachiri, whose video clocked one million views in less than 48 hours on YouTube.
Kachiri is a popular dance in Tanzania that means shake it.
The trending video that features Tanzanian Bingo flavour star Diamond Platnumz premiered on music channel Trace Africa last week on Wednesday before it was availed on several other online music platforms including YouTube.
Shot in Tanzania, the video was directed by Dir Kenny, adding to King98’s growing catalogue of collaborations with regional heavyweights.
In an interview with NewsDay Life & Style yesterday, King98’s manager Steven Tsikirayi saluted the fans for their support.
“The song and video of Kachiri have become record breakers not only for us. This is certainly an achievement for our Zimbabwean music industry,” he said.
“This is our first music video to reach one million views within 48 hours of release because of the support of our fans. We salute them for enabling such a success.” Tsikirayi said the sound of the two artistes made it possible for the collaboration.
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“King98 is the youngest artiste to have a collaboration with Diamond Platnumz, thereby making the former an incubator of great talents. The adage says the deep calleth unto the deep. King98 working with Diamond Platnumz has been a revolution and it was a great synthesis of two great talents determined to change the arts industry of Africa and their diverse talents paved the way for them to meet,” he said.
He described the two artistes as “international” adding that their duet was revolutionary.
“King98 has a vision of synthesising Afro-pop and hip-hop, therefore, him being the pioneer of such a great vision, King98 had the dream for east Africa also to listen to this unique sound and this has been made possible through Kachiri,” he said.
Tsikirayi said their aim was to revolutionise local hip-hop music through collaborations.
“As the King98 camp, our quest is to take our brand and music to the people, not only in Zimbabwe but across the continent and fly the country’s flag high on the music scene. To achieve these goals and objectives, we have considered collaborations as the formula to accomplish our mission and that is exactly what we are doing,” he said.
Tsikirayi said they were happy that their plans had been going according to the script such that they have managed to grow their fan base beyond the borders, giving them strength to work even harder. “We are not in competition with anyone but working hard to establish a strong brand in the creative industry. We hope we will be able to reach out and have a collaboration with celebrated American singer Chris Brown one day who is on King98’s wish list of musicians to collaborate with,” he said.
After the release of his debut 14-track album Francesca last year that also features some regional heavyweights, King98 has not laid back, but has managed to strengthen his relationship with international music stars.
So far, King98 has collaborated with Nigerian superstars Davido and Zlatan Ibile, South African hip-hop sensation Nasty C and LayLizzy of Mozambique.
