Thomas Mapfumo says Zimdancehall artists need the queen’s grammar-book or else they will be forever stuck in the ghetto. The Chimurenga maverick has insistently argued, at least five years now, that dancehallers will never make it internationally as long as they continue singing a Jamaican genre in a Zimbabwean language.
Speaking at a press conference in Harare, ahead of his Bira Guru concert, the archetypal prophet of the resistance chided Zimdancehall artists for mixing up their borrowed robes. Young artists, he said, should promote their own culture but when they appropriate foreign culture, they should do so on the originators’ terms.
“You may say I do dancehall but do you know this name? Can you explain to us what dancehall means? It’s a Jamaican word,” said Mapfumo. “We don’t discourage our youths from entering music. But when you step into other people’s culture, do it in their language so that you can be heard globally like them.”
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