Take Fizzo blasts Zim Dancehall Artistes, Producers

Music producer Tatenda Jenami, popularly known as Take 5 (Take Fizzo), has blasted Zimdancehall artistes and producers for releasing sub-standard material onto the market.
Take 5 described most Zimdancehall songs as “demo CDs” that just find their way to radio stations and onto the streets.

His solution: he will now produce Zimdancehall.

“These guys do not even care about the quality of their music; be it the beats, the voice or even the videos that they make. Someone needs to help them produce a better sound and pay more attention to their works,” said Take 5 in a recent interview.

Take 5, who is part of hip-hop group Few Kings with Junior Brown and Tehn Diamond, said the problem of poor quality Zimdancehall had forced him to venture into the genre.

A pioneer of the urban grooves movement, Take 5 said the problem with Zimdancehall was that practitioners were after “quantity (and) not quality”.

“It seems like all they care about is releasing more and more material onto the market without any regard for the quality of the products that they are releasing. Now that they have conquered the market I really feel that they should start making efforts to produce quality music.

“That is why a lot of artistes that sing other genres but want to venture into dancehall are coming to us. They need better quality but they know that they will not get it from the existing dancehall producers,” said Take 5.

Take 5 said he had already produced two dancehall riddims, Good Morning and Vapfumi, which feature a number of unheralded artistes. The two riddims will be launched this Friday at a venue to be announced.

Arnold Matuke, a creative director at Take 5’s Zion Studios production house, said “we are pushing for relatively unknown artistes. If the product is good it does not matter who is on it”.

Matuke added: “We got the idea to do dancehall when Lipsy came to the studio last year and did a track with Few Kings. After that she also did another track with Pauline and then we saw an opportunity to enter dancehall.”

Matuke also said that despite being big, Zimdancehall still floundered when it came to quality.

“We have been preparing for the launch of Zion Studio’s Zimdancehall side since last year. We are doing that on July 11, at a glittering ceremony that will feature all the top radio stations in the country, top artistes and corporate sponsors.”

The creative director said besides pushing for quality, Zion Studios also wants clean, public radio friendly music that can be listened to by families.

“There is a tendency by Zimdancehall artistes to use lewd lyrics in their songs: we do not want that. All artistes that will record with us will have to sing music that can be listened to by the whole family — music that is radio friendly, music that builds not that which encourages fights,” said Matuke.

At the Friday launch, Matuke said there could be a surprise from Take 5, who has been cooking the beats in his studio.

“Besides Lipsy, Juwela, Quonfused and Shocker – there could also be a surprise package from Take 5. I think he got inspired while working on the beats and felt he could add a line or two,” said Matuke.

While Lipsy and Quonfused need no introduction in music circles, Juwela and Shocker are indeed new names waiting to enter the big time. Juwela, a student at Midlands State University, is riding high with her track “Love Haimanikidzwe”. Although relatively unknown, Juwela looks to steal the thunder from her counterparts as she has already collaborated with DJ Smylie, Lady Squanda and Lady B.

With more artistes from other genres taking to Zimdancehall, including sungura ace Alick Macheso and the humorous Kapfupi,  could this be the fillip transformation the genre needs?