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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
DANICA Studios, a record label in Victoria Falls has come to the relief of artistes in the resort town by offering them free studio time during the ongoing lockdown while also encouraging female musicians to take up music.

Founded as Kay Empire Records in 2013 by Ray ‘Muffia King’ Karipache, a singer-cum radio presenter, Tafadzwa ‘Chuchu Manie’ Zwikoni who is a music producer and Venon ‘DJ Vex’ Shambare, the studio changed its name to Danica in 2018.

It has signed six artists from Victoria Falls namely Holy Kid, Kidlee, Bullet, Trickman, Empress Mitchie and Thandoe who are coming up very well.

“Every month, we release an instrumental and invite an artiste to come and record for free as we want to help musicians from all genres during this trying time.

“We also want female artists in Victoria Falls and Matabeleland North to take music seriously and develop their talents hence we came up with the Rock Riddim that was made specifically for them,” said Muffia King.

“Our goal is to help artistes, especially in Victoria Falls and develop the industry because most have talent, but face challenges as they have no resources to record. So we’re offering our studio during this lockdown so they record and discover themselves,” he said.

Muffia King said during the lockdown, the studio has produced a riddim, Dead Man which features 12 artistes from the resort town and Goodnight Riddim which features 17 artistes.

Another, Dance Lovers’ Rock Riddim is set to be released in a few days and will feature Muffia King and Chuchu Manie, artistes from Harare – Ras Caleb, Ras Blaze, Fulture and Blah Tito as well as Raja Flame and Sahr Jay from Ghana and Sierra Leone respectively. Six females namely Empress Mitchie, Queen Ginae, Thandoe, Queen Lady, Empress Pam and Empress Faith were included as a way of encouraging female artistes to develop their talents.

Muffia King has a plan to record a video that will feature various artistes in the resort town.

However, he said the lockdown had stalled the plan as they no longer have money coming in from shows.

“Life has been tough because of the lockdown since our monies used to come from shows which we can no longer do. But to keep the people entertained, we held a virtual Lockdown Party in May which was sponsored and we’re planning on a second one.

“We hope to find ways of getting revenue from online events in future as we understand how tough it is for the artistes hence we’re offering our studio free of charge.” – @ncubeleon