Proud Zimbo [Anhu Acho]

As with every other year, 2018 has received it's fare share of album releases both from the seasoned artists to the new and upcoming artists. We have now reached the end of the year so it's fitting that I share with you my favourite musical projects for the year. Am fortunate enough to have been able to listen and review a number of albums released this year and today will be sharing with you my favourite ones.  Before we get into the top projects have to clarify that the albums under consideration are those that were released from December 2017 to 30th November 2018. Cannot include an album released in December because for one to have a clear verdict on a project you need a couple of weeks to listen to the album. In selecting which album is the best, the pillars I look at are: How compact is the album, can I just let it play to the end or it forces me to jump to certain singles??  How does it fare compared to the artists previous album and other albums in the sam...

This has been a mixed year for the big artists in the dancehall genre, the so called veterans did not have explosive years as compared to the previous year(s). However among the lot Freeman managed to release a commendable project (Mukuru Wekambani) as compared to his peers ( Winky D, Killer T, Seh Calaz, Soul Jah Love...etc ) enjoyed his album more than the projects from the aforementioned peers. 2018 on the other hand belonged to new and upcoming stars such as Enzo Ishall, Bazooker, Jah Signal...etc, they gave the veterans a serious run for their money, forcing them to go back to the studio and make something for the festive season, all of them have released something these past 4 weeks.  Now as I stated that I enjoyed Freeman's album more than the others so among the lot I was looking forward to his festive projects more compared to the others. He has finally released his festive project packaged as an EP. The project contains only 5 tracks, which makes my job a bit easier....

Been a fan of Tamy since she released her debut album The 18th Rollercoaster, have been rooting for her since then. At the beginning of each year I publish the artists I feel music fans should look out for and included Tamy on the lists for the past two years.  I'm glad to say she is now staring to fulfill the potential I was seeing in her.  When I listened to her debut album I knew if she kept pushing she was going to be a big star, however felt she was gonna remain in the sort of afro fusion kind of vibe and be a Zim equivalent of SA starts such as Zahara, Berita or Lira, I was wrong!!! In my defense given the sound on her debut album you can forgive me. Since then she has been experimenting with her sound and style, she has been embracing the changes in her life as she is maturing into a woman and also embracing her sexual side something you can clearly see in her current visuals.  Tamy has had quite a successful 2018, her track Lay It Down featuring Nutty O...

Once in a while you come across a song that you had no idea existed but blows you away. Mebo by Obert Chari is one such song, had no idea that this track existed until this weekend (yea I'm late I know). The track has been out for about 3 months now and is getting a lot of love in may bars all over the country, especially in the outskirts.  Managed to listen to the song for quite some time and I have to say this is one deep and unique song. During a quick search of other songs from Obert I realized he is a gospel artist, who specializes in Mgidi music, which is native to the ZCC Church and on this track he decided to experiment with a love theme and it has paid off.   The mgidi elements are all over the track but mixed with some sungura influences. One of the charms of this track is the various influences which makes it hard to categorize the track into any specific genre. The production is done very well, the instrumental does a great job providing a solid ba...

The biggest artist in Zimbabwe is back again with another project. Last year he released the superb Kutonga Kwaro, an album I personally enjoyed a lot but ended up being a very much politicized project and that robbed it of its status and appeal. This year Jah had a huge task of separating his music from country politics and that probably pushed him to experiment with his sound leading to tracks such as Ronika & Angel Lo , which are probably his worst singles in recent memory. Many complained about his change in sound and that's why prior to this album he talked a lot about listening to his fans and going back to his old signature traditional sound. The album is finally here and as always there is going to be a lot of noise about the project so have tried as much as I can to distance myself from hype-men so as to give an undiluted review. Getting into the album, major questions are; Has JP truly returned to his unique traditional sound?? He is still aiming at continental...

This is my first review of any project by Karizma, saw the link for this project on his profile and decided its high time now. Was happy to find out that the album only has 8 tracks which is refreshing and shows he will probably be going straight to the point. Personally I'm not a fan of any album that has more than 12 tracks, filler tracks are such a pain to sit through.  Fakazi means Witness in isiNdebele so several question will arise as one is about to listen to the project: What are we witnessing on this project?? is it a change is style?? a change in sound?? is Karizma getting out of his shell??. Like I said the album contains 8 tracks and will be doing the usual track by track review down below and my overall thoughts at the end. 1. Finally (Intro) This track could easily have been titled I Still Believe, it talks about how Karizma believed in his dream, he believed that he was gonna get the recognition and success he deserved, for years he has been pouring his ...

Finally Grateful is here, have been waiting for this follow up to King Of Glory for two years now, its finally here. Janet Manyowa won me over from my first listen of her music and over the years she has gone to become my favourite gospel artist in the country. She has had a lot of success in these past couple of years, topping the charts for most weeks compared to any other gospel artist in the past 3 years, in fact no other artist secular artists included has had more weeks top of the charts compared to her in the past 3 years.  With the new album the major question is will she carry on her industry dominance, will she be able to improve from her beautiful debut album. The singles released prior to the album all performed very very well; Zadzisa , Tomutenda Nei & Muchengeti ,which was a good sign to everyone waiting for the album. Now we already know three tracks from the album, lets see how the rest of the album fares. The album contains 11 tracks and will be doi...

Bryan K has finally released a follow up to the superb debut album  Nyaya Dzerudo . Over the past two years his sound has been evolving as he released tracks such as Forever , Heavy Machine  & My Love so it'll be quite interesting to see which sound he goes with on this project. To make tings more interesting he went on to name the album Evolution K which probably signals a change in something!! Browsing through the track-list I found that there are a couple of tracks that I already knew, those that were released prior to the album launch date. However the good thing is that more than 50% of the tracks are new so it will not feel like a collection of singles like what other albums do. Now lets get into the album and see what kind of Evolution is this?? and how does it stake against the superb  Nyaya Dzerudo ??. Th album contains 13 tracks and as usual will be doing a track by track review of the album. 1. Chengetanai The album starts with a powerful i...

Zimbabwe is a county rich with talent, if you take time and explore all the corners of the country, all the 10 provinces you will be amazed by the wealth of talent at our disposal. Despite that all the successful ones are based in Harare or at least spend most of their times in Harare. Its understandable to a point because Harare is the biggest city, its the capital city, its the political capital, its the financial capital, its basically the capital of everything.  All the biggest producers, record labels, are based in Harare, it also plays host to most of the movie production houses (Bulawayo was once a threat in that department.) so most artists, actors, producers, directors tend to relocate to Harare.  However I feel that in order to fully realize the potential that Zim has in terms of arts there is need for other small cities and towns to step up. It however easier said than done but on this article will be trying to provide some suggestions as to how we can achi...

As we closed off the month of September we have now lived through 3 quarters of 2018. October signals the start of the festive season so before a load of new festive anthems start dropping I have  decided to share my favourite tracks of the year up to this point. There are many tracks that get overlooked when the festive anthems drop so have decided to give them a platform.  This year year was an interesting year music wise, there were some superb comebacks and a number of new artists managed to make a solid mark on the music industry. The usual big guns were missing for most of the year, however I feel they gonna try to come back and take control of the festive season. So lets get to my top 10 tracks from 01 Jan to 30 September in no particular order.  Baba Harare - The Reason Why This song has grown on me and right now it's one of my favourite tracks. The jam is growing in popularity day by day and it will continue getting many dancing deep into the ...