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Tonderai Zvimba, Showbiz Reporter
Zimbabwean musicians have been criticised for producing poor quality music videos by the international community, but from 2016, there has been a sudden change as the quality is showing signs of improving.

No doubt, local musicians are talented musically but they were lacking in terms of quality videos that would accompany their great songs. As a result, this saw them miss out on many opportunities (slots at festivals/concerts) as they could not brand themselves.

Taking heed of this, the artistes worked on the quality and creativity of their videos. The emergence of local videographers such as Vusa Blaqs and Andy Cutta also played a fundamental role in this movement as the two made the artistes dream a reality by working wonders on their videos.

To try and capture the music channels, most artistes collaborated with other African artistes such as Davido, Diamond Platnumz, Mafikizolo, Mr Eazi and Professor who already were enjoying airplay on the channels. Clever move as these efforts by the local artistes and the videographers were not in vain as continental music platforms like Trace Africa, MTVBase and Channel O, that for so many years, had not been playing content from Zimbabwe saying it was sub-standard, started embracing it.

For years, the only musician that these channels entertained was that of South Africa-based Zimbabwean Buffalo Souljah. But with the emergence of quality videos from musicians such as ExQ, Ammara Brown, Simba Tagz, Jah Prayzah, Queen Vee, Tammy Moyo, Takura, Nkwali and Sandra Ndebele, all that was changed with Buffalo taking the back seat.

Jah Prayzah for example, dropped videos My Lilly ft Davido, Angel Lo ft Jah Cure, Ronika and Follow Me ft Patoranking — all produced by Blaqs that were played on the foreign channels. Having these videos on these channels as well as his association with socialite Genius ‘Ginimbi’ Kadungure seems to have worked in his favour as he got notable shows in the continent last year.

Hip Hop musician Takura also had some remarkable music videos in the past year as his videos for songs Mai Mwana and Ngoro Yemoto which was shot in the UK received a lot of airplay on channels like Trace.

One cannot talk of great videos of 2018 and leave out Tammy Moyo. The talented songstress, in October last year, dropped a video for song Lay It Down featuring the talented Zimdancehall chanter Nutty O. The video which was directed by renowned director Andy Cutta is a modern video with great fashion, choreography and artefacts and all these elements led to a masterpiece of a video. A month later Tammy dropped another quality video of her single titled Tekere in which she worked with Cutta again.

The colorful, glamorous Tekere video has a high pop culture feel to it symbolised by the high end fashion and the colorful set design.

Winky D who has had a long history of producing poor quality videos proved many wrong with his Paper Bag music video which saw him win the best Zimdancehall music video at the recently held Zimdancehall Music Awards. The Paper Bag video which was shot in South Africa is one of the singer’s great videos. The extravagant video which looks like an action thriller and shows an affluent and hustle lifestyle was one of the great videos of the past year.

It was also a good year for ExQ with his Tsvigiri video. Ammara also went in hard with the Akiliz and Svoto ft Mr Eazi videos.

From Bulawayo was Sandra and Nkwali who put the city’s music on the map with tracks Lizwile ft Professor and Rafiki ft DJ Zwesta.

Having set this pace last year, it is hoped that the artistes will continue with this momentum this year and keep putting the country’s music on the world map. Hopefully, they will start getting rewarded for their works by being honoured with international awards.