2014: Prophets, dirty dancers, murderers

THE headline says it all: A dark narrative of the depths to which the human soul plunged in terms of our cultural life. Yes, there were redeeming moments here and there.

Part 1 THE headline says it all: A dark narrative of the depths to which the human soul plunged in terms of our cultural life. Yes, there were redeeming moments here and there.

Overall the picture is rather uninspiring in a positive sense as I cast an eye on the year that we have waved goodbye to. 2014 may well go down as the year in which there were seismic shifts on our sociopolitical arena from Jukwa to gamatox.

It was pure whirlwind stuff. I can’t remember a similar year in living memory quite like this one even on the culture scene.

The prophets and the dirty dancers Bev Sibanda hogged the broadsheets as well as the tabloids. She got “delivered” and “undelivered” all in three months in Prophet Magaya’s PHD Ministries church.

The prophet had even offered the saucy dancer a clothing shop to help smooth over her transition to chastity. A rival dirty dancer Zoey was nay saying the conversion on the sidelines alleging that it was all a big ruse. She was to be proved right.

Bev went back to the seedy night clubs to ply her trade. Why? I suppose the “deal” had not included “accommodation” for her pimp or handler if one must be charitable. The handler – a guy called Happas, would not stand aside and watch his “cash cow” being taken away. He also started attending the church perhaps in the hope that he would somehow be cut into the “salvation” deal.

Culture Beat will say that this is where it all went wrong. Christianity is not a bed of roses. The promise is one of eternal life. There are no guarantees of material comfort per se.

There are also no guarantees that pimps or “managers” will be paid for letting their wards get delivered! Soon, as the country now knows Bev left church under rather tragic circumstances and that together with Happas in tow, spitting fire at the prophet. To her credit she reportedly apologized for bad mouthing the man of the cloth after a welcome attack of conscience.

Oscar Pistorious, handicapped star athlete over in South Africa was busy making all the wrong waves for the killing of his girl friend Reeva Steenkamp in his house.

The facts of the case as they unraveled, painted a picture of a guy who acted in my novice opinion as a law student at the time, what is referred to as dolus eventualis.

This, as you may now well be aware of, is simply when the perpetrator foresees the possibility that his action may cause death and persists regardless.

Oscar was stunningly convicted on the lesser charge of culpable homicide which requires only negligence. Law experts quickly offered their expert opinion that the judgment could and should be appealed. Judge Thoko Masipa, a former journalist turned lawyer will not probably not go down in the annals of law as a legal “giant”.

Judge Masipa explained why Pistorius did not foresee that he would kill Steenkamp.

She, however, did not much in terms of why she believed he did not foresee that he would have killed the perceived intruder according to the likes of Pierre De Vos, a constitutional law lecturer at the University of Cape Town, as press reports had it at the time.

What totally flummoxed my brain was how one would not have both subjectively and objectively foreseen the possibility of killing someone as they were firing four shots into a confined space with high calibre ammunition.

It completely eluded me how even though the judge established that Pistorious had been an “evasive” and “poor witness” she could believe his rendition of events.

Oscar deserved and still deserves an Oscar award for his performance wherein he belched, wailed and shed croc tears in court. Unbelievable.

It helps to have money and good lawyers I suppose. The prosecutors have since been granted leave to appeal. Hopefully they will get their guy.

Awards First off were the Nama and the National Arts Council did the right thing by sending me a personal invite to the national awards. It flatters and gives one the sense that their efforts are appreciated. It does not blind you to the glitches when they take place at the same awards, however.

I liked the awards show in February. Moreover, it was glamorous and handled by the country’s top MC Babongile Sikhonjwa. There were two glitches: The minister’s slurred speech and the Mai Charamba award.

In a year in which she did not release any new material, she got an award for best female artist. The word here again is: stunning! Edith weUtonga and Selma Mtukudzi were left smarting.

Fair minded folk were also left with sand in teeth. It was grating. Mai Charamba is one of the top artists in the country but what was she being rewarded for at an annual awards show when she hadn’t produced any new material in the preceding year? The officials were at pains to explain but in the end that marked the start of the bungles.

More were to follow. The Zima awards proved no less eventful in the negative. Upfront, I applauded their return after a seven-year hiatus.

I even offered my advice that they should meld the proposed awards with the Daves Guzha mooted Wene Music Awards. Daves and company had announced their judging panel at a press conference.

It had the late legend Paul Brickhill (founder of arts mecca Book Café) as chair, Debbie Metcalfe (Tuku’s former manager), Nigel Munyati to name a few genuine arts exponents. I felt that their experience would help to forge a respected awards brand for the fledgling sector.

Bungles John Nyadzayo and company went solo on this one. The awards were postponed and later held in October. The highlights were that Chinx got a house from the organisers for his lifetime achievement award. His two wives were ecstatic because the house has two ensuite bedrooms!

Seriously, a category that was bungled was the best engineered album award. It was given to Obadiah Matulana. I broke the story. I was bashed by respected figures in the local arts sector who questioned my motives and bonafides.

Was I wrong? No, because the Zima

folk conceded to me that they made a mistake.

Did they correct the mistake about mishandling an award which should have been given to the person who actually engineered the album not the artist who misrepresented the particulars on the forms?

No they did not publicly do so. Joe Maseko still remains robbed of the accolade. Zima has in my view no credibility as a well intentioned set-up.