Electronic Dance Music in Zimbabwe

Electronic Dance Music (EDM) is one of the most popular genres in music today. It covers sub-genres such as Trance, Progressive House, Techno, Dub-step, Trap, Bigroom House, Drum & Bass just to mention a few. This genre of music is widely played on the local radio stations but is less followed by the locals as many view it as European or White folks music. This may be somehow true as most of the genres originate from Europe and nearly all of the big names (Calvin Harris, Tiesto, Armin Van Burren, Martin Garrix, Skrillex, Zomboy, DvBBs, Hardwell, Oliver Heldens, Tchami...etc) come from Europe. 

EDM fever is spreading all over the world and countries such as South Africa have accepted the culture and music. South Africa has the biggest House Community in Africa. Zimbabwe is also catching up to the EDM fever with Dj's/Producers such as Jason Le Roux, Zyon Black, Reverb 7, Rob Macson, Samwell Cosmic, Chris Taylor, Nic Fourie... pushing for the popularity of the sound.

Jason Le Roux is the most known among the lot, mostly due to his popular Hidden Culture show on Zifm Stereo which aires every Saturday from 21:00hrs to 00:00 hrs. Its the only show on local radio stations which sorely concentrates on EDM.  Le Roux also played an important part in creating Zimbabwe's first and biggest dance festival Neverland. The festival is held annually in December. Neverland is gathering popularity year by year. 

Zyon Black is the other big artist in the EDM community. This is mostly due to his monster remix of the iconic Thomas Mapfumo's Classic song Nyoka Musango. He showed his production skills on the dubstep remix. Remixing such a timeless beast of a song does not even enter the thoughts of many producers, Zyon Black dared and succeeded. The remix became an instant EDM classic, some may say it introduced many Zimbos to EDM music. Zyon has released other songs such as Vadzimu, and Rova Ngoma with the latter being more successful, as it dominated SA Dubstep Charts.

Rob Macson is another favourite of many. He released his EP Chasing Lights a couple of years back and it introduced him to most Zimbabweans. We Love It ft hip hop heavyweights Simba Tagz and Tehn Diamond was the best and most popular song on the album. He is slowly gaining popularity among Zimbos. He has been teasing his followers on social media about an album in the works, hope it comes out soon.

Reverb 7 is another successful EDM Producer/DJ. He concentrates mostly on Deep House, and is very good at that. From the time he released Honai featuring O-25, he has been a favourite of many deep house fans in Zimbabwe, and he remains the most popular Deep House Producer in Zimbabwe. In the past 6 months he has released hits such as Na Na Na ft Tehn Diamond and Simba Tagz,  Handikusiye ft Shingi Mangoma an they are receiving a lot of airplay on local radio stations.

The movement and EDM culture is winning the hearts of Zimbos bit by bit, and with more EDM festivals in the works the culture will get only bigger. Personally am looking forward to the new offerings by the artists spearheading this movement. With strong competition from Zim Dancehall and the fading Sungura, more effort and determination is needed to make EDM the biggest culture and ultimate party music in Zimbabwe.

Proud_Zimbo