Over the past few weeks, an ambitious young brother going by the name Butshilo Nleya has been hustling around in the organisation of cultural events in Bulawayo as part of efforts to mark 120 years since the city was founded.
There was the show at Horizon Bar and Restaurant called Zimboita with Bled Chimanga and some Italian outfit.
There were other events such as the book launch, poetry slam, Africa Day concert and the Night of a Thousand laughs at Rainbow Elite in Bulawayo centre which proved to be perhaps the most successful in terms of audience attendance he was involved in.
The joint was filled with comedy fans that turned out to snigger and guffaw at the irreverent wisecracks of young Clive Chigubu and Q the Boss, and some other upstart comedienne by the name of Nomusa Muleya.
That’s not all. Besides the behind the scenes donkey shift of organising the events, Nleya is a percussionist par excellence who has shared the stage with just about everyone from Willis Wataffi, Bozoe, Jeys Marabini, Siyaya Arts, Dudu Manhenga to name just a few.
On top of that, he is the founder of Bulawayo Cultural Festival which he started in 2013. He might have formed the festival out of a desire to do his own thing. Perhaps not . . . But one thing for sure is that the brother is headstrong.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing if your vision is clear enough. The only problem is that once folks think you are a know it all punk, then they want to see you fail and fall flat on your face. What must you then do?
You “eat” humble pie and make certain the pie doesn’t choke you. You must also deliberately “emit” the kind of vibe that makes people want to give you a high five rather than beat you down just for kicks. Still, by putting others in the spotlight, the spotlight falls on him.
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What does Nleya want? A few weeks ago I posed this question: what does Butshilo want ? “In relation to what ?” was the answer. Well, in relation to all this hustling about in the local creative sector? “I want to be an authority when it comes to the entertainment industry” That was Nleya’s answer.
I have said it before, the brother is ambitious! But personally I believe that ambition must be matched with capability. Yes Butshilo has both the gumption and currently , the seeming humility to successfully pull off a showbiz event.
This territory is fraught with egos that compete with Mount Kilimanjaro for size whilst being peculiarly as fragile as egg shells. Artists tend to have ultra thin skins.
As an industry watcher, I believe that Nleya will attain his goal. So far, he is proving to be one to watch with his power plays and macro vision.
The missing link Local showbiz is not begging in terms of pedigree. What is begging are structural issues such as associations, unions or even guilds a formalised coming together of creative workers where they can network, share and deliberate regularly on industry related matters and form strategies. One area they would need to think upon is how to build audiences from ground zero.
No matter how good you are as a full time performer, if no one comes to see you then you just can’t get paid.
So how do you get the crowds to come see your show ? First you must educate them. You have to go where the people are. Go to the churches, go to the streets (e.g. Egodini, Erenkini, Bradfield Shopping Centre, Stanley Square, the colleges, the schools) Knock every door.
Take out your small public address system or acoustic guitar nxa kusenzakala thwala ngengungu yakho. It’s a hyena fight out there and getting a morsel inside your mouth takes everything in you. Additionally, get a good mobile phone and bombard your friends with your videos and audio files of your recorded works.
Start with your friends. Upload your stuff on You Tube, Reverb Nation and many other platforms. If they won’t play you on national radio, cyberspace will. By all means run hard.
Currently though, there is no structure in our creative industries.
Everything hangs loose. Slowly, through the work of the likes of Cont Mhlanga, Raisdon Baya, Butshilo Nleya, Simon Mambazo, Pathisa Nyathi, Brian Jones, Jane Morris and others, the creative sector is taking shape.
What must now happen is to formalise the local creative sector through associations.
This will serve the purpose, among others, of gathering stats around who is doing what, where, when and how.
Yes, there is a national directory of arts organisations and practitioners, but a local one is begging. Before audiences fully patronise artists, they must first find one another.
Visual artists have formally associated themselves under VAAB (Visual Artists Association of Bulawayo). and this helps them work as a collective facing challenges in the sector. But the other sectors are yet to follow suit.
Across the border. . . at The South African Music Awards South Africa continues to be a valuable reference point for me. I watched the music award show with awe.
I marvelled at how a twenty year old sector trumps ours which is thirty four years old ! South Africa of course has the benefit of having major global music companies such as SONY-BMG and Universal Music Group operating on its territory apart from television channels MTV and Channel O with an international reach. Content distribution is not much an issue over there as it is here.
What must the local musicians and videographers do to gain access to the world markets ?
They must gain local critical mass of fans as did Oliver Mtukudzi. This takes time. The other route is the Mokoomba one.
This one is about making sure that you live in a resort town where the tourists will see what you do and spread the word to their friends overseas!
Of course you must be really as good as Mokoomba are. I have also noticed that people with marketing backgrounds who understand how to build brands become managers of artists in South Africa.
All the popular artists over there have managers the kind who work with artists from the ground up and invest time and effort into the building of artist brands.
Artists must think of themselves as commodities that must be branded, packaged and distributed. If this doesn’t happen, then it’s all kid’s play.
Maybe someone out there needs to take a leap of faith and front our local creative. We have quality product but no clear grasp of the selling and marketing thereof.
Gospel music soul food Tonight, at the Word Of Life church a gospel group called Sunshine City Choir from Harare will stage a mouth watering concert alongside Pastor G, Xmile, Vocal Ex and others.
The star— studded cast is sure to deliver the kind of hoopla Pentecostal music shows tend to deliver and Culture Beat will be there to sample it all.
Hopefully local entrepreneurial videographers will capture the event for posterity and for the market.
I recommend we all go and see this show. When properly executed, gospel music is soul food.
