The Sunday Mail
Founding Zim dancehall promoters Robert Zhuwao and Farai Shambare have described music promoter Partson Chimbodza of Chipaz Promotions as an irresponsible promoter who is driven by greed.
Zhuwao, who runs Red Fox Hotel, a reggae-dancehall home and is one of the biggest supporters of Zim dancehall, said Chipaz’s messages prior to the show were contradictory.
“On one hand he was saying he was promoting peace, but on the other he designed posters where the artistes are wearing boxing gloves and he went on to sponsor stories in the Press where the artistes were attacking each other.
“As if that was not enough, he builds a stage that resembles a cage, for cage fights, and puts 10 bouncers in that ring with two artistes. It’s ridiculous, what message was he sending?” said Zhuwao.
The Red Fox Sound boss said Chipaz should have been more responsible with his advertising tactics for the show, as he clearly promoted violence under the guise of promoting peace.
“I said it after the Kalado show that this violence thing is getting out of hand, and that we should put our heads together to find a solution, but we are seeing someone actually taking advantage of that acrimony in between the artistes, it’s sad,” said Zhuwao.
He said at the time: “Besides the fact that these artistes will paint our country as an unsafe destination, this behaviour could get someone killed. Today, it is the cans being thrown on stage, who knows what will be thrown tomorrow?
“This behaviour is bad, we need to nip it in the bud before it gets worse. Today it’s cans, tomorrow it will be knives and the day after it may be guns that is not our culture. There is no gangster culture in this country, we are a peace-loving people.”
Writing in a local daily, Shambare, a businessman, founding member of Stereo One International and founder of Small Axe Sound, said Chipaz is a selfish and greedy person who “is in this for money and not to nurture talent”.
“He should have been the one trying to bridge the differences between Soul Jah Love and Seh Calaz, but instead he focused on how much he was going to pocket, and this is pathetic for a man of his calibre.
“As an elder, I expected him to get to the nitty gritties of their differences, and then try and resolve them. Instead of having a clash, it should have been a get-together show for the two warring artistes rather than having them clash,” seethed Shambare.
However, Chipaz justified his concept, saying the use of the term “clash” and designing posters with boxing gloves was merely a marketing gimmick.
“We wanted a concept that would draw people in their numbers to the venue and then we educate them — you cannot educate people that are sleeping at home. Our theme was ‘no to violence and no to can throwing’ and even if you look at our posters, that was the major highlight on the poster.
“We needed to create something that would attract the people to be at the venue, see Calaz and Soul Jah Love sharing the same stage and afterwards share a drink without any problems,” explained Chipaz.
The top promoter’s plans went horribly wrong. Police put official figures of injured people at nine, that is, cases that were actually recorded, but there are obviously a lot more people still nursing injuries from that nightmarish gig at home.
