Zimbabwean Artist PrayerSoul is a storyteller in essence but a musician in expression. A singer-songwriter, entertainer, now teacher – we’re lucky in the least to say PrayerSoul’s been around for a while, his debut self titled album PrayerSoul was released in 2012 and a personal favourite track titled ‘Reflex’ still sounds as good as new today. In 2015 he released ‘PrayerSoul Live At The Old Mutual Theatre Ep’ while just last year he released a sophomore album titled ‘While I Was Away’.
With news of his tour, a promising new venture in Music Education and his ambitious move into new spaces with ‘Citi Sessions’ we had to catch up with our favourite Soul brother for a brief chat.
Stephanie Kapfunde: Hey Prayer, walk us through Citi Sessions, why in the city, what do hope to achieve with this particular audience? Tell us everything!
PrayerSoul:
The event seeks to celebrate music by young urbanites being supported by other urbanites who are our corporate, business owners, socialites and celebrities. Pretty much anyone who loves good quality live music and style…creating a platform where young artists get the shine and recognition they deserve and get to interact with the ‘booking audience’ that don’t mind paying the artists their worth…the City because the music is inspired by artists from the city, the event is attended by people from The City, it is a City inspired Event.
SK: This audience is different from your usual, how certain are you of the buy in?
Prayersoul:
The buy in is definite. #CitiSessions is an exclusive upmarket event. Everybody enjoys something exclusive once in a while. The response we already from people who’ve attended and from potential partners is Awesome! We will have corporate partners at our next edition of #CitiSessions purely from the success of the launch. If that’s not buy in I don’t what is…
SK: Be honest, did you start Citi Sessions because you think Harare Entertainment is missing ‘that thing’?!
Prayersoul:
Actually, I believe we have a lot of untapped authentic entertainment in Harare, we just don’t follow up with creating enough options for people to see this. As artists we’re sometimes guilty of being cry-babies…when artists step up and create value it attracts fans, corporates and money.
SK: You’ve been an artist predominantly and now we see a shift where you and other Creatives are creating their on spaces through events, tell us more about this.
PrayerSoul:
I feel this is very necessary because we’re not waiting for someone to come and hand us a functional event culture in Harare or a booming music industry either…naturally for an entrepreneur who sings that was going to happen with me. I was also a co-founder of the Acoustic Night so events were always part of what I did.
When we were done getting souled on the Citi Sessions we did some prodding and got Prayersoul to tell us the low-down on his Pop-Up Guitar lessons and Music School hopes.
Right now people only know that I am doing guitar lessons, but what I hadn’t said is it’s just the beginning, we’re putting together a school and I already have a partner. We are kicking of as a Pop-Up Music School for now with a place for admin and bookings but what we will actually be is a mobile school to make it easier for parents with school runs and all. – PrayerSoul
That’s not all Prayersoul has been looking at getting affiliations to make this Music School super legit with licensing and all that jazz
We are looking at long term things that make it possible for us to truly benefit the Arts scene…this is not just about making profit
he concluded.
Prayersoul confirmed that the school would be launching in May as soon as he returns from his Euro Tour which sees him perform in Germany and the United Kingdom. We do hope that he gets it together and succeeds, the ancestors know we’re totally rooting for him!
To say a special goodbye the crooner will be hosting a tour send-off show titled ‘One Last Time’ on the 12th of April at the Kenhill Farmhouse. If you haven’t watched him live, this could be it. Check out the poster below.
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