Mambo Guramatunhu turns to musical poetry

Life & Style
Paradza said he is now fusing spoken words and music and his latest piece Mdhara, a dedication to fathers, is testimony to this new thrust targeted at attracting better airplay and more audience.

BY CHIEDZA MAZHANGARA MASVINGO poet Ngonidzashe “Mambo Guramatunhu” Paradza has challenged fellow poets to embrace the use of music in their poetry to widen the options of marketing their works.

Paradza said he is now fusing spoken words and music and his latest piece Mdhara, a dedication to fathers, is testimony to this new thrust targeted at attracting better airplay and more audience.

“I have decided to fuse poetry and music on my latest piece after realising that the acapella audios we used to do were not effective enough to be played on the local radio stations,” he said.

“Joining poetry with music means poetry will now be falling under music and this is a huge advantage for us as poets. Our content can as well be voted for whenever there is music selection and the audience can endorse. “If we package our work in a way that will make it reach the people, then it is an automatic win for us as poets.” Mambo Guramatunhu encouraged poets to come up with initiatives that enable them to enjoy the fruits of their sweat.

“As poets, we are really struggling to support our families from the art because it is under marketed and not commercialised. Now realising that the music industry is doing well, as we are not far from each other, poetry and music, we find it worthwhile to fuse the two for a better livelihood,” he said.

Mambo Guramatunhu is now recording in a professional studio to improve the quality of his works unlike in the past when he used to record on cell phones.

“We are now producing videos done by professionals as opposed to standing under the tree and recording a video.

“This made our content less airworthy. We used to just share our pieces on WhatsApp, but now through musical poetry we can reach out to a wider audience,” he added.

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