You switch on your TV, browse through your channels and end up watching the music channels whose content is mostly foreign. All you see is glitz and glam, chains and cash, girls and grillz! They potray a very lavish lifestyle ,you fantasize about. Actually you begin to imagine yourself in Wizkid, Drake, Cassper’s etc shoes, in that same spot light with your 15 minutes of fame either singing or rapping your mind and soul out only to be slammed by the wave of reality across your face.
Fact is the music artistry is pushing the envelope in our present times with regards to pocketing the coin but that’s a general perspective let’s put the magnifying glass on the ZIMBABWEAN music industry for a minute! Are we bagging enough coin so much that we can brag about it in a song like most rappers do? Does being a musician in this country actually get you enough to fill a shopping cart when grocery shopping on a regular Sunday? We could answer both yes and no to those questions. However for arguments sake we do have the Jah Prayzahs( earning an average of 60 000 a month acc to a valuable source) and Mtukudzis, the list goes on. Clearly with that said there are a few artists who fill their bag at the moment but what about the rest?
Not to throw shade or anything but do most of our fresh musicians make enough from their art to fill a fridge in their kitchen, if they even have their own kitchen to begin with? I mean, I was in the same Kombi as Boom Betto the other day on our way to Budiriro. I’m sure his material gets plenty of airplay and he has performed a couple of times enough to get his transport arrangements in order and not be in the same seat as mine, just a regular guy .
Well we’ll never know because not all musicians walk around showing off their real paycheck, and I’m not talking about the social media flexing which even I could do with my distant uncles Mercedes Benz G-wagon which I could ask permission to take selfies of myself in it then hustle to get the data bundles to upload online
