Musicians in feeding frenzy as ZITF closes

Various local artists and musicians joined the feeding frenzy of the hospitality industry as they took good advantage of the thousands of visitors thronging the city for the much vaunted trade showcase.
Chief among the activities koBulawayo was the much anticipated inaugural Bulawayo Culture Festival which took place at the National Art Gallery on Friday and Saturday night. The Butshilo Nleya-conceived festival stuttered at first with cancellations of some performances presuambly due to time constraints. Nevertheless, Victor Kunonga, Plumtree-based Tanga Pasi and local acappella group, Family Voices gave a good account of themselves. Saturday night was different. Nobuntu, a five member all female group handled the stage with a coolness belying their relative inexperience as performers in the public arena. The crowd lapped up the their female imbube set which was backed at some point by Othniel Mangoma  a renowned percussionist who has worked with just about every one here in Bulawayo and even the likes of Dudu Manhenga. For me the high point of the festival was when the famous Black Umfolosi led by Sotsha Moyo climaxed their set with the evergreen hit song Unity. The group’s performance as visceral and effortlessly elicited a singalong from the crowd with arms clasping rhythmically in unison. “No more Shona, no more Ndebele..” Thus went    part of the lyric of the peace anthem that helped launch the group over two decades ago. Other performances were by Jeys Marabini, Bongo Love, Ramsey Ka-sawaya while Busi Ncube closed the festival. But the night was old by then.
In other places such as the Large City Hall, Dan Tshanda was serving up his disco dish. Old maestro Ray Chikapa Phiri, the legendary frontman of mega group Stimela was entertaining a well-heeled audience at Bulwayo Rainbow as the guest of the South African Ministry Of Industry and Industry, deputy minister Elizabeth Thabethe. Phiri was brought in as part of an exchange programme.
In the periphery of the city and next to the ZITF venue, the young and the restless had the nascent tribal house music group Djembe Monks living it up alongside new cohort Khuxxman (Khulekani Bethule) and Harare urban groovers Trevor Dongo and Sniper at Gifford High School. To cap it all was Otis Ngwabi, a NAMA-nominated artist wooing revellers at the launch of his latest album Uthando lempilo and Sulu Chimbetu somewhere in one of the city’s night spots.