The Sunday Mail
Recent reports that controversial rapper Alishias Musimbe, aka Maskiri, is now a follower of Prophet Walter Magaya of Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries (PHD), have raised a lot of eyebrows.
Reason being, this is the church that motormouth raunchy dancer Beverly Sibanda, real name Junior Lizzy Zinhu, recently dumped following a fallout with the church leader over monetary issues.
Moreover, Maskiri himself is the godfather of controversy, a brewer of shockers whose notorious lifestyle combined with his immense talent has seen him remain relevant on the Zimbabwean music scene for over a decade.
Could Maskiri be about to pull a fast one on Magaya that would see the rapper’s profile shooting through the roof?
“I am a born-again Christian now. I realised that a life of not knowing God is not a life at all.
“What I’m doing is genuine, I have no life-threatening disease, problems or demons — I just want to know God with the help of Prophet Magaya and other congregants who will make me strong as a Christian,” said Maskiri in an interview. He added: “I grew up going to Methodist but after being invited by a friend to PHD ministries, it affected me in a way that I have never known. I saw government ministers, traditional chiefs, businesspeople, celebrities and common folk all united by one goal, to worship and praise the Lord and I asked myself: why am I not doing the same?”
The pint-sized artiste, who says he has no intention of ditching his profession as a musician, believes his rap career will actually get a boost from the blessings he will get now that he is going to church.
“I pray for blessings so that my path is clean and unhindered. At PHD where miracles happen I am sure I will get blessings to take my music to greater heights.
“What I will not do, though, is to look for material things in church because that is when the problems start,” he said.
A lot of derogatory names have been given to the chart-topping rapper, among them mischievous, obscene, hallucinatory, junky and even blasphemous – over his more than a decade long music career. Maskiri has never been the one to live far from controversy.
In 2004, his album, Blue Movie, was banned from the airwaves for carrying a lot of explicit lyrics but before that his song Dhara Rangu had also been forced off radio for being blasphemous.
In 2005 Maskiri nursed a broken pelvic after allegedly jumping off a third floor balcony after being caught pants down with someone’s wife.
He denies the allegations, but that is not all. In 2008 he was reported to have gotten stranded in Guruve, his mother’s rural home, after going there for a performance.
He has had feuds with countless artistes, but the most notable one is his verbal war with another rapper, Desmond “Stunner” Chideme.
Maskiri says that is all in the past now: “I am grown up now. My daughter Shumirai is now in Grade Three. I recently launched a perfume range, which means I have more to manage on the business side and more to lose if I do not lead a straightforward life.
I have business partners who do not need any controversies.”
The rapper, who has six albums, Muviri Wese, Blue Movie, Tapinda Tapinda, Ndo Taundi Yacho, New Look and Recovery, has been dropping chart-topping singles lately.
He is one of the few urban grooves voices that have managed to keep the genre in the game. NaMwari and the remix, Tsotsi, Daira, Miss Officer and most recently Musanyepere Vanhu featuring Munetsi and Quonfused, have all made it to the top spot on both Star FM and Power FM radio stations.
Maskiri has worked with most urban grooves artistes including Tererai Mugwadi, Nox, Roki, ExQ, Leonard Mapfumo, Extra Large, Sanii, Mzimba, Trevor Dongo and Russo, to name just a few. At his peak, Maskiri went on a nationwide tour with sungura king Alick Macheso in 2008, but the economic meltdown in the country forced him to seek greener pastures in South Africa where he is reported to have hit hard times.
His time in Mzansi saw him track down TBA the Playboy, now late, for an album which carried the hit song, Wenera, featuring Nox.
In 2010 Maskiri returned home and since then he has cultivated a clean image.
However, it remains to be seen if Maskiri, whose latest single Mnandi, which talks about anointing oil and has a few diss lines aimed at Beverly Sibanda for “putting the name of the church into disrepute”, will remain controversy free.
