Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Trust Khosa
7 March 2009
Harare — VETERAN sungura artiste Alick Macheso is set to delay the recording of his eighth album amid reports that he is planning to end his brief romance with South African company, Mobile Music Trust.
Macheso entered into a three-year contract, which is due to expire at the end of this year, with MMT in 2006 after ending his marriage with Gramma Records and produced just one album -- Ndezvashe -eh!
However, it seems the relationship with MMT has not been a bed of roses for Macheso and this week he confessed that he was yet to receive royalties from the sales of Ndezvashe-eh and its accompanying DVD album.
This has left Macheso contemplating seeing through his contract without recording any new work so that he joins a new stable at the end of the year when he is free to leave MMT.
Macheso had been scheduled to start recording his latest album this month.
However, it emerged this week that the Orchestra Mberikwazvo boss could be headed for a showdown with MMT if what he calls "irregularities" on his contract were not ironed out timeously.
According to the band's spokesperson, William Tsandukwa, Orchestra Mberikwazvo's top brass will next week fly to South Africa to try and resolve the outstanding matters with MMT bosses.
"We should have left for South Africa long back but we have been waiting for one of our guys to get some visas.
"According to our plan, we would have wanted to go into the studio this month but as it is now, we can't rush into recording when there are some outstanding issues that need to be resolved," he said.
Quizzed on whether his boss had received some royalties from the sale of his album, he explained:
"That is another issue that we want to iron out if we go to South Africa.
"If you recall, we incurred huge losses and even went on to went to suffer some huge losses out of piracy as the album was leaked onto the market before its release. This time around, we want to make sure that it won't happen again.
"Another thing you must take into consideration is that we suspect that someone must have leaked our stuff the last time resulting in the album flooding the market before its official release.
"But if we don't reach an agreement, we are likely to record this album in Zimbabwe because we can't afford to experience more of these headaches."
In a recent interview, Macheso admitted that the much-publicised deal with the South African company was not rosy, with the singer threatening to pull out if some of his fresh demands were not met.
When city.com further contacted Macheso to shed more light on the issue this week, the sungura icon expressed similar sentiments saying he set the talks with his South Africa bosses with the view to either terminate or amend the contract.
"Yes we have plans to record an album as we promised. However, we might not record it in South Africa after all because there are some developments likely to take place.
"Chances are high that we might end up recording it with a local company because the South African deal costs us a lot of money," he said.
"We are also going to discuss that issue at length. In fact, that is why I am no longer interested in the deal because I incurred great losses.
"Imagine my stuff was already available on the market long before its official release and we were bound to lose a fortune in royalties,' he said.
Macheso, a former 'cash cow' at Gramma Records, left the stable in 2005 complaining of poor remuneration and joined the South African stable that appears to have brought about much pain than gain.
Although he took sometime to admit that all was not well in the deal, Macheso has on many occasions been complaining about piracy, which affected his South African move.
At the moment, he is under pressure from fans to record an album considering that some of top sungura artistes like Tongai Moyo, Nicholas Zakaria, Njerama Boys and Josphat Somanje only but to mention a few have new material on the market. However, Macheso says he is not deterred by the fact that some of his counterparts have new material on the market.
In fact, he says he is concerned on giving his followers quality music.
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