Proud Zimbo [Anhu Acho]

This has been another impressive year on the music scene, local artists have been racking up huge views on streaming sites, arguably the best year when it comes to streams, views and like to date for local artists. On the singles side it had been a huge year but when it comes to albums its a different story, many artists fear making albums and prefer to stick to singles. I partly can understand them as making an album requires an artist to dig deep, an album is when an artist invites listeners into their world, take them on a tour how they see the world, how they interpret certain things, or address certain issues...etc.  Making an album is not necessarily about making hits, an album can be coveted and successful without any runaway hit track, its the journey which the album takes you on that pushes it to success. The journey takes precedence, that is why you hear artists say I did not think this song was gonna be this big, sometimes it may even be that track they wanted to leave o...

Its that time of the year where many are waiting to see which track is going to be crowned the best of the year. 2025 like many years we have been blessed with a lot of beautiful and powerful music which makes the task of compiling a top 10 list a mountain of a task.  The Zimbabwean music industry is growing in all aspects, the music and sound is becoming more diverse, artists are now willing to try something new, creativity is increasing in all forms (production, visuals, arrangements...etc) and I'm loving it. This year we have been blessed with different styles of music with varying arrangements, from Kizomba to Bira music, its been diverse.  For this Top 10 the period under consideration is any song that was released from 1st Nov 2024 to 31st Oct 2025. The reason being most tracks released in November or December usually starts getting proper airplay the following year especially for newer upcoming or less known artists. The major challenge when compiling such a list is fig...

Its been a while from the moment I published the last edition of this series, life has been happening but now I am a bit settled and decided to resume. This is one of my favourite series to research and compile, it forces me to dig deep and listen to many songs before I arrive at the five projects that I will share with you.  Doing album reviews at the moment is chaotic as albums are dropping from all angles so will slow down on those and will only review a few select projects dedicating more time to topics like the one we are doing today.  To take you back a bit, this series Best Abums from Zimbabwe came about as a way of having a ready made well curated list of the finest music projects from Zimbabwe to provide anyone interested in Zimbabwean music a perfect starting spot. This series also aims at exposing Zimbabweans to some projects they overlooked or those that never came their way, which all adds to new life to those projects and makes one more prouder of being Zimbabwea...

Sometimes you need all hands on deck to move the mountain. This is what the Kwela Initiative aimed to do when they created their workshop titled, "Hip Hop vs The Community". Hip Hop in its nature is about challenging the status quo, shining the light on the ignored and overlooked aspects of community. This workshop was aimed at shing the light on the challenges that Hip Hop artists in the City were facing and finding a way to change the narrative. Bulawayo is gifted with many exciting rappers but on the national scale most of them are unknown, changing this narrative is the biggest challenge the creatives in the City face.  The arts sector in Zimbabwe is heavily skewed towards Harare and its a tall order for Bulawayo (or any other City/Town) to even out the landscape. A lot of strategy and funding is required to do so. To succeed the whole city (artist, promoters, authorities and fans) have to stand together, they need to make so much noise that the whole nation stops and lis...

So the inevitable has happened, Baba Harare is back to Jiti. This wont come as a surprise, the main question was always how long before he returns. Personally I did not understand the move, when an artist feels like releasing a gospel song they can do so without necessarily making a scene about it, anyone is allowed to sing for their Creator. As I highlighted in my article about artists switching to gospel, one of the major points was that the gospel community does not like to pay artists or any service provider, they hide behind "do it for the Lord and he will bless you" tip and that for me is plain slavery clothed as the gospel, just as pastors are financially taken care of, any person (member or not) who the church hire/books to provide a service should be adequately paid, not given a token of appreciation, a full service fee. Back to the music, after his switch no artist really made a serious push to fill the gap left by Baba Harare, something that is quite shocking and d...

Nisha Ts is relatively new to the industry but has made quite a splash during her few years in the limelight. She splits opinion but the fact that people discuss whether she is that good or not on different platforms shows she is part of the conversation.  She is under the stewardship of millionaire businessman Tinashe Mutarisi owner of Nash Nation record label. This means she has the some serious financial backing; recordings and videos will be taken care of, her main duty is to put pen to paper and make good records. So far she has managed to prove she has a knack for hit songs with success with tracks such as; Kutsamwa Kune Labour , Shampompo, Admire Kadembo & Madhunamutuna all which received a lot of airplay in various public spaces and radio stations.  She now embarks on her toughest milestone yet, releasing an album. Releasing singles and an album are two different things, when a single falls flat one can quickly release another one, with singles there is no need f...

Andy Muridzo has had an eventful career, filled with highs and lows, dramas at some point seemed to follow him everywhere and one would have predicted the end of his career, but he has held on. He however could have been way bigger that he is now if he had a strong team around him keeping him grounded and disciplined. There is a lot many say about Andy but one thing most cannot deny is the talent he possesses, he has some amazing vocals and when he gets serious he can deliver something special. He is one artist that frustrates me because more often than not he fails to meet expectations and somehow I keep expecting a lot of Andy. What he did on Nhekwe will forever ensure he has a spot in my playlists. Over his music career its been a hit and miss when it comes to releases. He has been good on several singles but when it comes to whole bodies of work like and album its been mostly misses. Will this new one change that??, we'll see. Another issue with Andy is sometimes he feels like...

ExQ has shown some serious consistency over his 20 plus musical career. He is a testament of the importance of evolution in one's career, in the early 2000's during the Urban Grooves Movement Era ExQ was more of a rapper, he was among the big names pushing rap music during the movement, he then started fusing rap with afro beat instrumentals in the 2010's which were his quieter years. Towards the end of the 2010's he then evolved more towards the afro beat, and as the projects dropped he added a lot of soul and jazz elements to his afro beat sound to create this lovely sound he currently does.  He is not much of a rapper these days, he prefers to sings more. The evolution over the years has ensured ExQ remains relevant.  Despite all that evolution Mr Putiti maintained his cool dude aura, and that has endeared him with fans of various generations. He has also over the past decade upped his live performance game something that has ensured he is a regular at nearly all urb...

Kurai Makore is still relatively a newcomer in the industry but his growth has been impressive for the past 5 or so years he has been in the industry. His brand has been growing steadily growing. This was however to be expected given he has been filling a massive void left by his father Dr Thomas Mapfumo on the local scene, especially in the live performance department. Chimurenga music is arguably one of the most loved genres on the local scene, its impossible to spend and entire weekend without hearing someone play Mukanya around the various pleasure spots all over Zimbabwe. A few artists have been doing covers of his tracks but there was no-one who was fully into his Chimurenga sound and Kurai has came and is filling that gap. Given Chimurenga has gotten the global recognition it deserves which was solidified by its addition to the Grammy list the genre is going to experience a serious revival and evolution. Given his relation the arguably the GOAT of Zimbabwean Music, a lot will be...