eBusiness Weekly
With three albums to her name and more still to come, Business Weekly’s Laina Makuzha (LM) had the pleasure of catching up with soulful Mbira songstress Hope Masike (HM) for an update regarding her latest video released on September 15, 2021, and how she has spent her time during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
LM: Firstly it’s great to see you doing well, I recall you kept us informed regarding a health matter you were handling at the time, how are you feeling now?
HM: Feeling much better now. I had surgery sometime during the past lockdowns and now, thank God, the fibroids are gone. Thank you.
LM: Congratulations on the new video, new book — so excited for you. How much work and time did the projects take?
HM: It felt like forever, but we have to be patient with the work we give our fans and give it all the times it needs.
The new song “Shuwa” and its video took close to 6 months perhaps. Besides the natural time it takes to produce good work there were lockdowns too in between that sometimes forced us to wait.
I also had my surgery somewhere in between recording the song and shooting the video.
The book has taken forever! Back and forth between editors and the rest of the people I worked with on the project, the lockdowns too led to other delays.
Most unfortunate, however, was the passing on of two editors I worked with, Lordwell Manyika and Dexter Mawisire.
I am happy I was awarded a chance to work with them because they were both such talented linguists.
It shall be an honour publishing perhaps the last book they worked on. May their souls rest in peace.
LM: With Covid-19 taking centre stage for all the wrong reasons, we know businesses and individuals were negatively impacted and artistes were not spared — but how have you been utilising your time during this lull?
HM: Much as we lost many gigs and tours, for us creatives it wasn’t completely bad.
Personally I found a lot of time to finish off projects. I wrote a lot, started learning other instruments I had never had time to learn and I also started giving online mbira lessons. Now I have students from across the globe.
I found time to sort out my health issues — the fibroids, with ample time to rest for recovery, something that was going to be more painful had I had many gigs to cancel.
LM: What was the inspiration behind your new projects?
HM: “Shuwa” is a song of hope and encouragement.
The brief from EU (who commissioned the song) was that I do a human rights anthem with a thrust towards encouraging listeners to know their rights and even more importantly know that if they are facing any abuse there is always hope and help.
So I wrote a song that says “don’t belittle your rights, no matter how awful life gets because of an abuser somewhere in your life, always remember that as long as you see the sun when you wake up, it’s a sign that hope is there. So get up, look for help and fight for your life”.
The video director and team chose to depict this message through the story of a young orphan girl whose designated guardians have turned out to be her abusers.
That was such an appropriate storyline as it’s relevant in many ways. I’m sure many of us, if not all of us, have
seen such or in the least heard such a story.
LM: What collabos have you done so far in your career and what would be your dream collaboration right now if any?
HM: I have done several collaborations. Most notable perhaps being my long-standing collaboration with the Afro-Nordic band called Monoswezi. You can look up our trans-cultural work on Monoswezi YouTube channel.
I’ve also had the express pleasure of being a member of the new Mahube, a fun collaboration of musicians from Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwé.
We have a great album also which can be found on all major online stores.
I did a fun mbira-dendera fusion with Suluman “Sulu” Chimbetu.
It’s called “Tingwarire” and you can watch the equally fun video on my YouTube channel.
