Award-winning musician, Japhet Mlauzi, stage named Hwabaraty is set to launch a new album, Jelimana live at Bulawayo Theatre in Zimbabwe’s second-largest city on 20 May 2022.
The musician created Jelimana to spark a spiritual awakening and heal the spiritual wound and bridge the gap between those in the diaspora and those who remain in their home country.
Zimbabwe has witnessed millions of its citizens travelling abroad for greener pastures, and the exiled people left spouses and children back home. Some have blamed this for the malfunctioning family relationships in the southern African country.
Hwabaraty said, “I hope to use Jelimana to forge cultural synergies between foreign lands and home countries while at the same time providing immigrants with a basis for creating culturally informed social narratives of their experiences.”
Jelimana is a song of royalty – the song is sung by those who are hunters according to Mlauzi.
The album, to Hwabaraty, is the spirit that has enabled the musician to level up to the next stage of life but left him to suffer due to the artist’s ungratefulness.
The musician is now inviting the spirit of a lucky charm to come back through the album.
“Well, it is time. It is time for me to show my true colours, I’ve been hiding who I am, but because of recent situations in my personal life, I have decided to open and share more with you all. Jelimana is like a lucky charm – regardless of how bleak the situation may feel, you will in because you’ve got Jelimana,” Hwabaraty said.
“Additionally, COVID-19 allowed us to hit a hard reset on our lives and revaluate our life paths. Specifically, it highlighted the unique challenges of those in the diaspora and the spiritual wounds and disconnect that all African people are navigating.”
Besides the 6:30 pm album launch, Mlauzi has plans of launching a short film and a book to continue telling the Jelimana story.
“I’d say this entire project unfolded on its own– I started with the album, which built out the script for the stage play, which then provided a framework for the short film, that provided structure to the book,” said Mlauzi.
