Friday, April 23, 2010

Cindy to release a new video

Urban groove songstress Cindy Rufaro Munyavi will be releasing a video from her new album entitled ‘Nerudo’ from her forthcoming album .

In an interview ,Cindy said it was a challenge to do the video because of the cost of film related resources in Zimbabwe, but through help from friends, she was able to get it all together and the video was done by the ‘The Groove Theory Promo.

“It was a challenge to do the video because the process requires a lot of financial resources. But with help from friends I managed,” she said

The video was done by Tafadzwa Mucheri a Zimbabwean based in the United Kingdom and this has emerged as his first video for a Zimbabwean artist.Tafadwa also specializes in R&B and has worked with Nigerian musicians like P Squared who produced a song ‘Temptations’.

Song writer Cindy released an album ‘Kukuda’ (loving you) in 2006 and in 2009 produced ‘Mwoyo Wangu’,(I can’t find what I’m feeling ) this is a song which is calls everyone to have a passionate heart, it is by choice to listen to the song or not.

She had also a song “Dhindindi’ which registered airplay and good listen ship on all 6 tracks out of 12.The songs also did well on the charts when she released ‘Stressed out’ video which was produced by Carl Joshua Ncube.

Cindy enjoys singing about love though she declined to disclose her personal life.

“I don’t want to disclose my personal life but people have to find out for themselves,” she said.

This year has seen more artistes releasing albums far more than previous years. Cindy had been described as a good singer as she is a lovely lady who is straight Zimbabwe R’n’B. The main concept about all the albums is love. She handles so many issues through her music one might end up being convinced she really went through this stuff!

‘Ruva’ is a gem which features one of the genres most refined artistes, Alexio Kawara. Their collaboration is just beautiful and they both sung very well. It might not quite compete but it will leave you with goose bumps! The production through the album was generally good and not monotonous.

She also has a good track record in terms of nominees. Recently she was nominated for the People’s Choice Awards on the Best Urban Groove category and nominated in the past ZIMA and NAMA respectively.


www.zima.co.zw

Gender equality so close,yet so far

'lets unite and make the road from a declaration to a Protocol,campaign for Gender Protocol,move from an era of commitment to an era of implementation'.(Permanent Secretary of Women Affairs Gender and Community Development)

But an honest criticism is hard to take particularly from a relative ,a friend an acquittance or a strange but in this case from a female counterpart towards gender equality.

The struggle for gender equality amongst men and women is far from being won.

Men are still reluctant to accept women as their counterparts

The question still rings in my mind,'How far true is it that women are equal to any task given the platform and can they work alongside their male counterparts?'

'For women and men to work together we need to progress the dialogue from dependency of women through independence to interdependence(Dr Olivia Muchena Minister of Gender,Women's Affairs and community Development)

Meanwhile ,many questions still remained unanswered,will women dominate in all sectors?

The issue emerged from Parliament debates but matters of the government are generally seen as a prerogative of men in Zimbabwe .Although women constitute 51 percent of the population ,women are grossly under-pressure in Parliament

Women are outnumbered in positions, politics in particular as the main factor limiting them from participation in politics is gender composition of leaders in the political parties and the procedures for parliamentary elections .Political parties are in general,dominated by men who silent candidates or influence the selection at the constituency and provincial levels.

Women politicians are not heard relative to their strength in parliament but by any miracle they happen to be elected they are only figures in name not in power

The global political environment is becoming competitive can women survive?

'We are not clambering to displace men but we only need an additional chair.'' Dr Utete Permanent secretary of Gender ,Women's Affairs and community Development.

Right away from the onset God created man and he made it clear by first creating men and from men's side he formed a woman.Had he created them together what would have happened

Iam not saying women are not important,men are important no get me right.

Journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.Its not over until its over.A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless if you fail to make a turn.

Meanwhile women are advocating for the ratification and domestication of the Gender Protocol in Parliament which was signed by SADC leaders early last year.

By Latwell Nyangu

A thousand miles journey


A thousand miles journey…..




‘Some people are born great, some achieve greatness and some greatness is thrust upon them’ Shakespeare once said that. Watch closely as the story of a man behind many scenes unfolds.
Carl Joshua Ncube better known as C J has used his talent for creativity in diverse projects. As an animator who wrote and directed Nyami-Nyami, the first animated film to be show cased in the history of the Zimbabwe International Film Festival and he is also behind the introduction of live graphics to ZTV and Zimbabwe in particular. ‘It is not a mistake to make a mistake but it is a mistake to repeat a mistake’ but Carl confessed that it was a mistake when he went to pick animation as a film genre. It was a mistake in two folds as he was studying to be a nurse in England and in between he worked as a party time in security companies and hotels or whatever he came across. He randomly bought a book about flash animation and he automatically became an artist so he thought the coincidence was pretty cool. When he came back to Zimbabwe someone heard that he did cartoons and they hired his services as an animator. From the onset, that was beginning into the world of animation as he started by doing a couple of animations for television, spinning logos and graphics, and then started making his own little cartoons. A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step as he described the state of animation in Zimbabwe as getting ready for a bit of a boom. Interest is certainly there. The facilities are there, and the technology is working in the favor of the country. The nice thing about animation is that it’s unorthodox as he described, so people should not sit in large committee rooms for the industry to get organized. Carl believes that he is pretty excited because the numbers of home grown animations is increasing rapidly and a lot of kids in schools want to be animators. People just need to swallow their pride a little and come together and a lot of people have their own animation projects that they want to do of he had an idea that collectively they need to pick a project and work it together, hence the industry will move a step further if they come together. One must be inspired to aspire so that they won’t expire likewise Carl like demystifying stuff that people choose not to talk about. He is very keen on tokoloshies, Nyami Nyamis and all of the goblins and weird things. He is very curious to find out what secret society is lacking behind Victoria Falls; what civilization hide a treasure in the middle of the Conical Tower . . . those kinds of things interest since they make the world shine with its wonders. Of all the things he enjoys comedy and taking a satirical look at many things and desires something that identifies with who he is as a Zimbabwean. In describing why Zimbabwean, musicians and filmmakers are lacking behind in terms of stories, C J expressed that Zimbabweans are suffering from cultural extinction, which comes from the fact that the content isn’t available online. For as long as the Internet has more sites that are British or American in content, we less likely to convert our own content into that medium because we don’t see how it will work for us. Zimbabweans are failing to see that it is their responsibility to get our stories online. Crediting the 100% local content Carl vowed that people misunderstand the quality which has to come from somewhere that people should have just been allowed to produce the content, as bad as it was, and then Zimbabwe can start tweaking it and making it better. If Zimbabweans didn’t have a starting point they wouldn’t know what to do. The problem with Zimbabweans is that they don’t understand what an inventive spirit is even with the advancement in technologies; we don’t understand how to build on stuff. Culture has been described as static and does not allow free expressions and it’s always considered a taboo when you do something contrary to the norm. We’ve got so many things that people don’t want to change because they’re stuck in an old fashioned way of thinking. That’s how our culture is built. Do something different and you will get burnt; there will be a public outcry. And the media are the ones who perpetuate that even more by pushing the notion that things must remain the same. What the media don’t understand is that their role is to bring about innovation. A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless if you fail to make turn thus the journey of Carl Ncube is defined as he view criticism, tribulations and intervention of retrogressive elements who always want to see things downtrodden whenever he try to direct things into the right way as set ups for a step up.

By Latwell Nyangu

www.carljoshuancube.com