Fanuel Jongwe
28 November 2004
CONTROVERSIAL rapper Maskiri says his latest album has been banned from the airwaves because of what State radio bosses considered offensive content.
"I was told by deejays this week the CD was banned and they won't play it on radio," he told StandardPlus last week.
He would not be drawn to divulge the names of the deejays and said he did not bother following up to find out if the album had been officially banned on the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH)'s radio stations.
Maskiri, real name Alishias Musimbe, vowed to stick to his guns despite the unofficial ban on the album titled Blue Movie - The Sound Track.
"I will not change my style in order to get airplay or bend to suit the tastes of certain people," Maskiri said. "Otherwise we will all end up singing the mundane stuff you hear on radio about the sun rising in the East and setting in West or about a father going to visit his family in the rural areas at the end of the month. It would be unfair to my fans. In fact, ndirikutoita ndichiwedzera controversy kuti zvirambe zvichitengwa."
Admire Taderera, the head of Power FM, could not be reached for comment as his mobile phone kept ringing when contacted by StandardPlus on Friday. Power FM caters for urban grooves, a music genre popularised by the country's younger generation musicians who flooded the airwaves following the introduction of the 100 percent local content policy.
Mike Chaswara of Corner Studios, the company that is distributing Maskiri's music, said Blue Movie - The Sound Track was "promising to be a big seller" after it sold 2 000 copies in the first week of its release.
Maskiri, who has almost become synonymous with controversy, shot to fame - or is it notoriety? - when he released his debut album, Muviri Wese. It contained the tracks Dhara Rangu which drew the ire of sections of the Christian community because of its chorus which refers to God as "dhara rangu", street lingo for an older man who gets along with streetwise youths; Zimhamha in which Maskiri fantasises about being intimate with a sugar mummy and Kwedu Kuchafiwawo where he imagines himself suddenly rich upon his father's death, after inheriting the old man's wealth.
Maskiri foretells the blackout on Blue Movie in a simulated interview - titled Zvinorevei on the album. In the dramatised interview a radio station boss creates a scene when he barges into a studio where a presenter is interviewing Maskiri, and fires the presenter on the spot for inviting Maskiri, whom the radio boss says is a bad influence on the youth, to the studio.
Blue Movie is likely to court more controversy with tracks like Mabasa Erima, in which the singer tries to lure a priest's daughter to abandon her Christian principles and follow a hedonistic lifestyle, dealing in hard drugs, watching pornographic movies and transactional sex. When the girl resists, Maskiri rebukes her saying the gospels had blinkered her.
Other potentially-controversial tracks include Chikudo, a fake radio advertisement announcing the introduction of a brand of mbanje (marijuana) "specially prepared by Dr Maskiri," and Cousin, a song about a boy who has a crush on his cousin. He tells her, "You are only my aunt's daughter and not my blood sister," when she tries to brush the boy aside saying they are cousins.
Maskiri changes from bad boy to custodian of African culture, complaining to his ancestors about the prevalent moral decadence characterised by lack of respect for elders and sexual abuse among other social ills, in the song Tateguru.
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