Happy Again: The Conversation Beyond Winky D’s Music

First off I want to start by saying I’m a very big Winky D fan so everything I’m going to say is slightly biased. I know often people claim to be objective but I think we all carry around different biases. After all, our mindset and way of thinking are influenced by all those experiences we absorb. Anyways being a Winky D fan I absolutely welcomed this latest release. Because as fans of Winky’s music we had been starved and from first impressions, Winky had delivered something worth the wait.

This is debatable of course but I for one like how Winky’s music has progressed over the years. Winky’s sound has mellowed out. From the up-tempo and energetic songs of his earlier years, he’s now moved over to slower music. It still has those dancehall elements but it’s different and I’ve found that I like the change. Ragga Msambo and Njema his last full releases have all been subdued in that nature and you know what I don’t really miss the old Winky.

Happy Again came with that mellowed sound. It was the first time I think I’ve heard a song by Winky D which was dominated by English throughout. I’ll be honest that some notes in the melody were awkward but I loved the overall delivery. It was simple lyricism but different and that breakaway from Winky’s norm is probably why I loved it all the more.

What made me love the song, even more, was the video. Now I don’t think there’s an artist who generally skimps out on videos like Winky D (If you’re arguing with this then look at how he almost only does one video per album and often it looks… *whispers low budget*) but on this one, he went all out. Happy Again is a film to the music, not something novel for Zimbabwean music but for Winky fans and others who appreciate his craft it’s a welcome fix of something we often ask for.

However, after watching the video Tsitsi Dangarembga sent out a tweet that said, “Just had a look at Wink D’s “Happy Again”.  While I love Winky D’s music and his charisma, in my opinion, the white girl fixation is becoming problematic.” The Winky Hive was not having any of it and they let loose. Some of the tweets in rebuttal were genuinely funny but others were in bad taste. However, the theme that emerged was that most people thought Tsitsi was wrong and way off the mark.

And I have to say after initially reading the tweet I thought it was a reach too. I mean looking at Winky D’s YouTube there are about 20 music videos and only 2 have featured white leads, and for a man who apparently had his shoes kissed by white women while on tour I think that’s a lot of restraint. And of those 2 videos with white leads, one of the leads was a featured artist on the song. So in my mind, I didn’t see anything resembling a “fixation”.

But then I thought about it again later, why couldn’t the actors have been black? Would it have taken away anything from the story being told? I don’t think so, I think a black cast would’ve just as been brilliant and that may be the point there. Why was the story of the black servant and the white master being romanticized? Because in reality that story wouldn’t have had a happy ending but the black man would’ve been hanging from a tree. I mean especially in the context of African stories, white people have been cast as bringing that saving grace a little too much when that’s not the reality.

To add to that, the elevation of whiteness feeds into other harmful notions like colorism. And although it’s often these issues of isms are often ignored because of other more serious bread and butter issues, you can’t deny they exist. Light-skinned women are often seen as cleaner than dark-skinned women. I mean when we come across songs like “Yellow-bone NdereMbinga” we know exactly what’s being said.

So I might not see the white girl fixation but taking it from a different angle, isn’t it problematic that as Africans we don’t tell enough of our own stories about African royalty. I mean isn’t it time to start doing so? Especially before Beyonce makes Black Is King 2 and you guys start calling her Mama Africa again.

Somehow what started off being about Happy Again went on a tangent and became about Gemma Griffiths. Now another disclaimer, I’m a very big fan of Gemma Griffiths, I think she’s really talented and I love her music. Now I guess we got to Gemma because she was the white woman who starred on the other Winky video or because she’s the most popular white female artist whatever. But the tweets ranged from saying she benefits from white privilege to calling her talentless and the latter has to be pure hate.

Gemma is without a doubt a gifted artist and she makes great music but yes she benefits from white privilege. It’s obviously not by her own doing but because she’s white she gets away with things a black woman wouldn’t get away with. She gets away with the pronunciation of Shona words with that north of Samora/private school twang which would see black Zimbabwean women trolled (cough cough like Advocate Mahere for example).

When Gemma shares eccentric stories from her life like living from her car for 500 days while writing & making music, we say that’s inspirational and amazing but you know different things would be said of a black female artist doing the same thing. So race really can’t be escaped even in the Zimbabwean context where 90% of the country is black. Tsitsi’s tweet and Winky’s art really gave people a lot to think about and you know what I’ll probably be playing Happy Again again soon but like I said I’m biased.