Music is a business- as such, a number of music experts, on various occasions, called upon musicians and stakeholders in the industry to be innovative in their dealings.
By Best Masinire
Failure to recognise music as a business has resulted in most musicians living as paupers though very talented and at times famous.
But such is not the story of one hip-hop musician, Tabviranhangwe Motsi who is known as Mellow Creme in the music circles who is following the innovation path.
The 37 year old Braeside based rapper is the brains behind the ‘Love& Hip-hop’ initiative which began in November 2012 aimed at promoting budding Hip-hop and R&B musicians.
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He believes the country and the continent can only become first world if stakeholders focus on the creative economy.
“We have realised that we do not have proper support structures in the creative industry in this country and have also noted that budding artists are the most affected ones.
“As such we came up with the love& Hip-hop movement through which we create a platform for upcoming musicians to showcase their talents.
“Most youths in the country are tremendously talented but lack exposure and through the movement we are moving from place to place creating avenues for the young stars,” he said.
Mellow also says the Love and Hip-hop platform is giving an opportunity for artists to showcase anything that involves pop culture.
“Love & Hip-hop is also a platform that helps those doing anything that involves pop culture like DJs, dancers and poets.
“It is like a stage through which we encourage youths to come and showcase what they have.
“Guys like fungai nengare, DJ Nider, sync, Black Pale, So Profound, Unique, Most quotable (the beat boxer), and Fadzo are some of the artists we have given a platform,”
Apart from giving opportunities to budding artist, Mellow recently started a program dubbed Sunday chills which he says promotes pop culture.
“Because of my experience and what I now know as a result of my age, I have got opportunities, which I know will just open a door for someone.
“There is a program called Sunday chills that we recently began at our offices in Milton.
“It is basically about good old school music whilst people chilling having drinks. The aim is to promote pop culture,” he said
The brown skinned rapper also encourages budding artists to embrace social media in promoting their works across the world.
“Kids today are lucky because there is social media; I encourage them to use it to their advantage and make their works go viral like how artists like Justine Bieber rose through social media.
“I want to represent Zimbabwe to the highest scale like what the Afro Fusion group, Mookomba are doing and also to see the artists I’m helping making it; I think it’s the greatest achievement I can have,” he said.
Tabviranhangwe Motsi aka Mellow Crème was born in 1979; grew up in Braeside and attended his primary education at Nettleton Primary and did his Secondary education at Goromonzi High School.
He began his professional music career in 2011 doing shows across the country with his band. To date the dreadlocked rapper has one album to his name “Mellow Madness” which he launched recently at Alliance Françoise.
The album caries songs such as Wifey, Chiedza, Huya Uone, African Angel, She gimme Reasons to mention just a few.
