There was a time when the Alick Machesos, the Tongai Moyos, the Peter Moyos, the Nicholas Zakarias, the Sulumani Chimbetus and the Somandla Ndebeles felt that their sungura genre was threatened by the rise of Zimbabwe’s latest ghetto genre, Zimdancehall Both proponents of these two genres argued that their audiences were different but the threat was so forceful that Alick Macheso ended up doing a collaboration with Freeman in a song called Ngaibake after noticing that Zimdancehall is a force to reckon with Zimdancehall is a reggae-based music genre born locally which draws much from Jamaican dancehall It had over the years gained massive popularity in Zimbabwe especially among the ghetto youths
At first, Zimdancehall came as a breath of fresh air Names such as Soul Jah Love, Seh Calaz, Tocky Vibes, Killer T, Shinsoman, Kinnah, Freeman HKD, Ricky Fire, Lady Squanda, Empress Shelly, Bounty Lisa, Winky D, Daruler, Poptain, Bazooker, Jah Signal, Boom Betto, Sniper Storm, Don Gaga, Cellcius, Kabhidha, Magical, Tally B, Turbulence, Jah Warrior, Terminator, Queen Kadja, Nutty O, Jah Master, Hwindi President, Van Choga, Jah Love and Ras Caleb came into play Some were one-hit wonders while others stayed in the market for some time However, of late only a few of these artistes have survived
It took me a long time to appreciate Zimdancehall as a music genre initially due to the monotony of the chord progression of E C G D which had the same ‘riddim’ on almost all the songs If you listen to songs such as Ndamuda, Mawayawaya, Ita Seunononga, Vasikana, Zvigaba, Miridzo and Hazvigone, they all more or less have the same rhythm There is a tendency to recycle music elements and production techniques from song to song and artiste to artiste thus massively reducing costs but creating a “sameness” to songs Chillspot Records, Zimbabwe’s number one producers of Zimdancehall riddims, never cease to amaze me
They follow everything trending in our society as evidenced by their innovative approaches to societal issues in Zimbabwe Riddim is the Jamaican Patois pronunciation of the English word “rhythm”, but in dancehall parlance, it refers to the instrumental accompaniment to a song This consists of the riddim plus the “voicing” (vocal part) sung by the deejay or the singer A lot of young dancehall musicians simply down load riddims from their computers and do a voice over to make a song
So, in a sense, riddims are very effective components of dancehall music Zimdancehall thrives on the creation of these riddims and make it easier for artistes to simply sing over already laid down riddims This is what many Zimdancehall studios such as Bodyslam Records, Sunshine Records and of course Chillspot Records are actively doing There are a lot of similarities between riddims and it might be difficult to distinguish them
In Zimdancehall circles, these riddims are given names such as Stage riddim, Jusa Dementor, Wine For me Riddim, Rise Up Riddim, Baby Boom Riddim, Nozzle Riddim, Bitcoin Riddim and Rangers riddim Some of these are used by studios to enable the singers to pick on the type of rhythm that should go with their song This is how it works: If it proves popular and an artist makes a hit using, say, Bitcoin riddim, it will have a big impact on other artistes who will select it with the hope of also making hits from its use However, too much use of the same riddim becomes monotonous to many listening audiences, who after a while get fed up of hearing the same sound being recycled over and over
It becomes saturated This maybe the reason why Zimdancehall seems to be on the decline There are a number of issues which periodically drive a shift in listening preference from new music to older music, but the key reason is when too much current music sounds the same for too long When this occurs, people start to default to oldies because of their boredom with the songs which more or less sound the same
Source: The Standard Zimbabwe
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Source: Thestandard
