On the 18th of October 2025, Dennis got married. It should have been a gentle Saturday afternoon with aunties in matching doeks, uncles speaking in lowered voices, and cousins live-tweeting the proceedings. Instead, the country decided to schedule every major event known to humanity within a twelve-hour window. The NetOne 263 Culture Festival was happening. The Castle Lager Braai Festival was on fire. The Charambas were celebrating Thirty Years, Thirty Songs. Hometown Bar & Grill had a Superstar Saturday lined up. Nijo’s Stories I’ve Never Told tour was underway. Chitown was hosting Bonfest. And somewhere, tucked delicately between these cultural earthquakes, sat Dennis’ lobola ceremony.
For me, and I say this with a little disappointment in myself, Dennis’ roora was unquestionably the most important event of the day. However, Dennis himself held a slightly different view. He was happily spotted at the NetOne 263 Culture Festival. Now, anyone who knows Dennis knows he’s the social glue of our group. We all orbit around him. Not necessarily because he introduces us to one another, but that he has spoken to every single person in Harare at least once. And yet, for a man surrounded by that many friends, we collectively failed him. Because not one of us paused to ask the obvious: Why couldn’t you, Dennis, clear just one Saturday for the single most consequential checkpoint of adulthood?
The optics suggested that his roora was not planned so much as it was gently wedged into his existing calendar, the way one squeezes an inconvenient dentist appointment between brunch and a movie date. The entire schedule seemed engineered to ensure he did not miss the NetOne 263 Culture Fest. If there were printed invitations, I’m almost certain the start time said “Roora: 09:00–10:45. Strict. Groom needs to attend SaintFloew’s set.”
I had seen Dennis the day before. The meeting was ostensibly for work, but as is customary with us, we inevitably drifted into conversation. Dennis provided a thorough, almost forensic update on his life. He spoke about his new car, his new job, his new luxury watch (which, legally speaking, is mine, and I will defend that claim later), his new apartment, his new barber, his new favourite rapper, his new enemies, and his new shoes. He narrated all of this with the expansiveness of a man giving a TED Talk, and I walked away feeling confidently briefed on every dimension of his existence.
Only when we were going our separate ways did I casually ask, “Ko gulez vari sei?” He responded in the tone one uses when mentioning a mild administrative errand, “Oh, we’re getting married tomorrow.”
I froze, trying to reconstruct the conversation I had just endured. Dennis had spent ninety minutes giving me an in-depth analysis of the problems in music distribution — an actual minute-by-minute breakdown of the crisis in the Zim hip-hop supply chain — yet he had somehow neglected to mention that tomorrow was his big day. I could not understand how this was not his headline news. Worse, I could not understand why he was with me at all. The day before my own roora, I was a trembling constellation of nerves, running pointless errands and panicking at unexampled levels. That is the natural human response. Dennis, however, appeared to be operating on a completely different emotional operating system.
There is a term floating around modern dating conversations — “nonchalance” — used to describe a deliberate, theatrical indifference to matters of the heart. I’ve always rejected that as a real human trait, but I must concede that no one in recorded history has embodied it more convincingly than Dennis did in the twenty-four hours before and after his roora. Don’t get me wrong; he adores Gulez. Anyone who has observed them together can see that he becomes visibly softer in her presence. He melts. However, his behaviour surrounding the ceremony was pure, uncut, artisanal nonchalance.
For the uninitiated: Dennis is the foremost Holy Ten stan in the country. Through every controversy, lyrical misfire, and acoustic war crime, he has remained unshaken in his devotion to the Mwana Ndakubirai hitmaker. His allegiance borders on spiritual conviction. It should reassure Gulez, because a man who remains loyal to an artist through that many public misadventures is capable of long-term commitment.
In the song Mwana Ndakubirai, Holy Ten outlines the method he would employ to handle his own dowry obligations:
Pasi pedoor pane mari yandakusiirai
Tsvakirai kuno, mwana ndakubirai.
I remain convinced that Dennis would have preferred this approach. It’s efficient and requires no particular emotional performance. In fact, I cannot confidently rule out the possibility that he attempted it. I strongly suspect he transferred money to the tezvara via EcoCash, used the payment reference “Macoolayo eRoora,” received the customary Mthuli Ncube tax notification, and then moved on with his day in pursuit of additional entertainment or anything else that piqued his interest.
All that said, I am genuinely happy for Dennis. I love him more than I care to confess publicly, so I will restrain myself to prevent his ego from developing a dangerous glow. But I wanted to give him something meaningful to celebrate his milestone. My first instinct was to curate a traditional roora playlist, filled with the dignified classics — David Chifunyise’s Tauya Naye, Freeman’s Wekwedu, and other ceremonial staples. However, as I built the playlist, I realised this approach was far too chalant for a man who treated his lobola the way one might treat a casual grocery run. So in the interest of honouring his particular brand of apathy, I decided to do the opposite. Thus, in tribute to Dennis’ unbothered spirit, I present the only gift that truly matches the tone of his journey:
an unapologetically anti-lobola playlist.
1. Oliver Mtukudzi – Munoshusha
Oliver “Samanyanga” Mtukudzi’s Munoshusha, the second track on his 1988 album Nyanga Yenzou, has endured for decades as one of the most honest pieces of documentation ever recorded about the quiet financial despair that can follow a lobola ceremony. The album’s title, which refers to an elephant’s tusk, has lived in the national psyche for decades, and I strongly suspect it planted a seed in Holy “Samanyanga” Ten’s mind when he christened his 2025 project Musoro Wenzou. “Musoro Wenzou” itself is a title that means absolutely nothing and reads like something generated by an AI that swallowed a dictionary of Shona nouns, but Holy Ten has always possessed a stubborn devotion and was determined to keep the elephant theme alive.
In Munoshusha, Tuku — with that signature gravel-warm voice that always sounded like it had lived several human lives before we met it — pleads directly with his father-in-law to stop behaving like a loan shark. He explains, with exhausted courtesy, that he paid the dowry in pounds (mapondo), yet his father-in-law appears to have interpreted this payment not as completion but as a down payment on future suffering. Each passing day brings another request, each one more implausible than the last. The moment of true crisis comes when the father-in-law demands an elephant’s tusk — the titular nyanga yenzou — a requirement so outrageous that Tuku flatly insists it is beyond him. He even clarifies that the remaining balance of the dowry is strictly monetary, and therefore an object the size and temperament of an elephant’s tusk should not logically appear on the outstanding balance.
The tension he describes sits at the heart of jeredzwa, the portion of the dowry left unpaid on the day of the ceremony. Shona lobola custom dictates that a groom must never settle the entire dowry in a single day. The principle is meant to preserve dignity: if the groom pays everything immediately, it might appear as though the bride’s family is releasing their daughter too cheaply, like she is being sold during a holiday promotion. The result is a carefully choreographed negotiation: the groom’s negotiators pleading broke even when the money is in their pockets, the bride’s family insisting on more, and everyone pretending not to notice that this entire exchange is a finespun piece of cultural performance art. It is an elegant farce until the ceremony ends, after which the groom discovers that jeredzwa, in the wrong hands, can become an unlimited line of credit for future inconvenience.
That is the predicament haunting Tuku throughout Munoshusha. The father-in-law, newly empowered by the outstanding debt, interprets the jeredzwa as an open invitation to continue requesting whatever comes to mind, confident that the groom must comply because the ledger remains incomplete. The requests grow bolder, stranger, and more frequent, and matters finally curdle when he calls for an elephant’s tusk. It is an exhausting arrangement, and I can only hope Dennis never encounters anything resembling it. Gulez comes from a lovely family, and I cannot imagine her father waking up one Tuesday morning and demanding an elephant component in this economy.
During the research for this section, I stumbled across a remarkable artifact: the original 1978 roora list for Tuku’s first wife, Melody Murape, which Selmor Mtukudzi shared on the fifth anniversary of her father’s death. The total came to just over 520 Rhodesian dollars, which more mathematically literate journalists have calculated to be roughly £1,370 in today’s currency. For a figure attached to a musician of Tuku’s eventual stature, the amount feels modest, although it is worth remembering that in 1978, he was still emerging — not yet the national monument we now remember. He was more of a Dancehall Keddah — promising, but still travelling economy class through the music industry.
Even so, he was in a band with Thomas Mapfumo and James Chimombe, which is an absurdly accomplished group to belong to during one’s early career. It’s the musical equivalent of being in a five-a-side football team with Messi, CR7, Maradona and Pelé. The man clearly had some cash. Thus, if I am being completely honest, I do not understand why Tuku was complaining. He was earning well enough that this figure should not have rattled him. I paid considerably more for my gorgeous wife, and at my peak, I was not even half as culturally significant as Dancehall Keddah.
2. Freeman HKD – Mkwambo
Some coincidences feel scripted. As I was writing this very section, Dennis walked into my office unannounced. I did not have a meeting scheduled with him, which immediately elevated the moment from coincidence to mild supernatural interference. He was wearing new New Balance sneakers, and they looked expensive enough that I’m certain he didn’t enjoy the new balance in his bank account after the purchase. He was also wearing a luxury watch which, legally speaking, is mine, and I will defend that claim later.
Before Dennis arrived, Dez and I were engaged in a spirited argument that had absolutely no business existing in a professional environment. We were debating who the most physically beautiful musician in Zimbabwe is. Not whose music is the most beautiful, but who is simply, indisputably, aesthetically good-looking. Before anyone draws conclusions about my character, I should explain how this conversation began. Dez has an extremely serious crush on Atenda Chinx, and he speaks about her with the kind of awe usually reserved for newly discovered planets. Naturally, I responded the only way a responsible hater can: by disagreeing loudly.
I confidently announced that Atenda could not possibly be the most beautiful musician in Zimbabwe and promised to prove it. This was a poor strategic decision, because I immediately realized I did not have a single convincing alternative. Still, pride demanded commitment, so I proceeded out of principle. I began assembling a mental slideshow of counterexamples, partly to challenge Dez and partly to avoid the appearance of a man speaking recklessly without preparation. This explanation may not fully absolve me, but I find comfort in letting you know that the conversation had a philosophical framework. I am not just a misogynistic lunatic operating without context.
My initial list featured Feli Nandi and Plaxedes Wenyika, which Dez dismissed as nostalgia bias. I am still unclear how Feli Nandi qualifies as nostalgia, but Dez insisted that my argument required someone younger to remain credible. This ageist adjustment came from Dez, not me, and I would like that officially recorded. After considerable thought, I landed on Melyssa, whose talent alone feels like an argument-ending trump card. Her song Kuhope managed to infiltrate my Spotify Wrapped two years in a row, which is not something that happens accidentally.
Melyssa is signed to Bridgenorth Music, a label that also houses several of my favourite artists, including Sylent Nqo and Mary Anibal. Under Bridgenorth, Melyssa released Simbi, a song that has lived permanently on my aux playlist since its release in May 2025. I still do not understand why it did not explode into a mainstream crossover hit, but that failure belongs to the industry, not the song. However, the argument was strictly about physical beauty, not vocal ability, not artistry, not contribution to the culture.
The disagreement escalated with impressive speed, to the point where colleagues had to intervene before it turned into a disciplinary email. To resolve the matter, we invited the entire office to vote, transforming the workspace into a tribunal. The atmosphere mirrored that episode of The Office where the staff passionately debate whether Hilary Swank qualifies as “hot,” complete with raised voices and no measurable progress. Predictably, the vote ended in a tie. We waited eagerly for a tie-breaker to enter the room. Anyone would have sufficed.
And then Dennis entered the room.
Without even allowing him to greet us properly, Dez and I shouted our arguments at him simultaneously, each hoping speed and loudness would win him over. Dennis studied me for a moment, shook his head gently, and asked in a voice heavy with post-marital wisdom, “Aren’t you married, Malcom? Why are you participating in this conversation?”
The shame arrived immediately and deservedly. Newly married people develop a peculiar confidence that convinces them they have mastered marriage entirely, while the rest of us are doing it wrong. Before I could recover, Dennis delivered the finishing blow by asking, “And why are you listening to Shinsoman?”
I had no defence.
At the time the debate began, I was playing Mkwambo by Freeman HKD, which features Shinsoman. This was strictly for research purposes related to this article, and not because I was voluntarily seeking out Shinsoman’s discography. Mkwambo belongs to the same narrative lineage as Munoshusha, unfolding as a two-character exchange between Freeman HKD, playing the tezvara, and Shinsoman, portraying the desperate suitor pleading for his mercy as the titular mkwambo.
The song is set during a lobola negotiation where the suitor, visibly undercapitalised, requests permission to marry the tezvara’s daughter. Shinsoman performs the tricky balancing act required in such moments, attempting to sound financially capable without triggering further extortion. The strategy fails spectacularly. The father-in-law responds by escalating his demands, interrogating the suitor’s income, questioning his hustles, and requesting capital for several imaginary business ventures that appear to have been conceived purely to test his resolve.
The song concludes in stalemate, with neither party yielding ground. However, the moral positioning is unmistakable. The listener is meant to sympathise with the mkwambo and quietly resent the father-in-law, whose confidence appears to be fueled less by tradition and more by opportunism.
Unsurprisingly, financial anxiety emerges as the dominant theme of this playlist. I cannot help but wonder whether Wicknell has permanently distorted the lobola economy for future generations. According to popular legend, he arrived with over $70,000 for his own roora and was shocked to discover he did not need nearly that much. I would like to formally state, for the benefit of all future fathers-in-law, that Wicknell does not represent us. He is an outlier. He is not the baseline. Most of us live firmly in the Shinsoman economic bracket.
Anyway, Dennis, this is why I was listening to Shinsoman.
3. ExQ – Tezvara Varamba
Enock “ExQ” Munhenga’s music has always sounded like advertising to me. Not in a cynical way, but in the very specific sense that it’s designed to sell you something pleasant and uncomplicated, and without demanding too much attention. It’s why I have always thought of his catalogue as commercial in the purest sense. He does not write songs so much as he packages moods. Many of them would function perfectly well as jingles if someone quietly swapped out a chorus and inserted a brand name. Sweeter, which remains one of my favourite love songs, could be repurposed to sell sugar-based products at scale, and nobody would feel misled. This is not an insult. It is simply my description of his instincts.
ExQ also occupies a very specific emotional address in Zimbabwean culture. He is a nostalgia artist for people who remember when Joy TV was still broadcasting, and after-school entertainment involved buying sherbet. Not long ago, I heard someone blasting Salala while driving along The Chase, and at almost the exact same moment, I noticed a faded Morgan Tsvangirai poster still stubbornly clinging to a wall nearby. That pairing unlocked a very particular era of national memory; an overwhelming sense of early-2000s Zimbabwe.
I want to be clear that I do not enjoy making fun of ExQ. I genuinely like his music, and as a child of the 1990s, I am probably more emotionally invested in it than I would ever admit in a serious setting. However, liking an artist and believing they are a great lyricist are two different commitments. ExQ could almost certainly win a Verzuz against any living Zimbabwean artist on sheer catalogue strength, but when it comes to mastery of the written word, he is not the standard I would point to. That is where my discomfort begins, because lyricism, in particular, has always been my sticking point.
Take Nhema, for example, his wildly successful duet with Killer T that reaffirmed his status as one of the most time-resistant acts in the country. I will play that song every time it comes on, but it would require a small miracle to convince me that this is inspired writing:
Bhonzo retsuro haritsengeke
Chekede chekede chekede
Professor Shingi Mavima, who remains my favourite writer in the industry, has dedicated entire essays to defending ExQ’s artistry. I respect him deeply, particularly because I have a standing policy of deferring to people who are academically superior by several measurable margins. That said, I refuse to be intellectually pressured into calling this great lyricism. It is the one issue on which we have never agreed, and I am prepared to be buried on this hill.
I say all of this as someone who is, for reasons I do not fully understand, considered by a notable section of Zim hip-hop fans to be the greatest lyricist the genre has ever produced. I do not agree with this assessment, but I am comfortable using it as circumstantial evidence of my right to speak in conversations about writing. I am not operating outside my jurisdiction here. In 2023, I worked with a hip-hop platform called Zazise on the intro track to their compilation album Storytellers of the Culture. The song, appropriately titled The Culture, featured deliberately restrained writing by my standards, yet it was widely celebrated as one of the strongest lyrical performances of the year. It went on to win Verse of the Year at the Zim HipHop Awards, which does not objectively matter, but becomes extremely relevant when I need to support an argument.
On The Culture, I use wordplay and references to acknowledge some of the most important names in Zimbabwean hip-hop, past and present. I even credit ExQ for ushering in the bling era, before tying that influence to one of the newer fashion-forward figures in the scene, Bling4. The line reads:
ExQ had us shining in them old fancy Reeboks
Still tichiri kupenya, what you think we got that bling for?
The homophone linking “bling for” to Bling4, whose song Isai Kupenya completes the circuit, is deliberate. This is what intentional writing looks like.
My favourite line from the song, however, is the one dedicated to my fellow Chitown emcee R.Peels, also known as Mwana WaPharaoh, a nickname that will become important in a moment. The line unsettled some listeners, which I completely understand. I have a tendency to push too far when left unsupervised. In it, I reference allegations made by Mia Farrow against Woody Allen, one of my favourite writers growing up. The line goes:
Ten years from now, I know Peels will still be up there
Nobody’s touched Mwana WaPharaoh (Farrow) since Woody Allen
Thank you for your service, Malcom. Exceptional writing.
I proceed like this throughout the entire verse, dedicating each line to a different artist. Many listeners assumed I was drawing inspiration from Jay-Z’s A Star Is Born from The Blueprint 3. I happily agreed at the time; not because it was true, but because the truth was slightly embarrassing. The real inspiration was ExQ’s second verse on Tezvara Varamba.
Tezvara Varamba, which features Ba Shupi on the hook, contains what I believe is the strongest writing ExQ has ever produced. It is so unexpectedly sharp that it genuinely feels ghostwritten. Either that or ExQ is fully capable of excellent lyricism and simply chooses not to deploy it consistently, which is a far more upsetting possibility.
In the verse, ExQ negotiates with a stubborn father-in-law who is deeply uncomfortable with the idea of his daughter marrying a musician, largely because music is not widely recognised as a financially responsible career choice. Within that framework, ExQ manages to weave in references to his peers without breaking character or abandoning the song’s theme. Each line doubles as a shout-out, built around trademarks and signature details that reward listeners who understand the references without excluding those who do not. My favourite section reads:
Kutaura pafair, vaimbi tine staira
Vabereki mudzimba, please, musatigaira
Mwana wenyu akatorwa naStunner anoswera aTeam Hombe
Akaroorwa neXtra Large, anorojerwa mundege
Anopengeswa nerudo akatorwa naTrevor
Ingori Two Chete akadanana naMapfumo
Akatorwa naWinky D, mhuri yake haina danger
’Cause wese ane dzungu, anogamwa nemaninja
Thank you for your service, ExQ. Exceptional writing.
4. Jah Prayzah – Mukwasha
I recently found myself on makeup TikTok, which is not where I expected my feed to take me, but the algorithm rarely asks for consent. While there, I learned about a technique called baking. The process involves applying concealer to areas of the face meant to appear brighter, covering it with a heavy layer of setting powder, and allowing it to sit for upwards of thirty minutes. The heat from your face then “bakes” the product into place, after which you brush off the excess powder. When executed correctly, the technique prevents creasing and creates an airbrushed finish. It is usually applied under the eyes, along the nose, and beneath the cheek contour.
The problem with baking is that it looks exactly like what it is: a lot of makeup. It photographs beautifully and performs well under studio lighting, but it struggles in the real world. It tends to exaggerate dryness, wrinkles, and reveals exhaustion with impressive honesty, particularly on people who do not possess the supernatural elasticity of youth. It is, fundamentally, a drag-adjacent technique that does not want to be examined closely or worn for long periods of time.
This was the dominant aesthetic of the mid-2010s, a period defined by heavy foundation, sharp contouring, and highlight visible from space. Eventually, there was a collective recoil. Around 2020, the “clean girl” aesthetic took over, favouring lighter foundation, visible skin, blush over contour, and neutral tones over dramatic colour. Brown eyeshadow replaced black eyeliner. Matte replaced shimmer. The shift was accelerated by masks, the lockdown, and a general exhaustion with excess. It also coincided neatly with Gen Z arriving and deciding, with little ceremony, that millennial makeup had become a lot.
A perfect example of the baking era appears in the music video for Jah Prayzah’s Mukwasha, which was released during COVID, right as that aesthetic was losing cultural favour. In contrast, the clean girl look was on full display at Dennis’ lobola ceremony, where the roora squad opted for restraint and natural enhancement rather than theatrical transformation. This was also the aesthetic at my own roora, which confirms two important things: that beauty standards evolve, and that Dennis and I chose women who pay attention to style. Unfortunately, while our roora squads understood their assignment, I did not.
Two years after Mukwasha was released, Clive “Mono” Mukundu posted a video on Facebook explaining a concept known as kurova gusvu. This is the ceremonial clapping performed by a mukwasha or mukwambo when greeting their in-laws, a group of people he is expected to approach with deep respect and fear. This is not optional. The mukwasha kneels on one knee and claps in a specific pattern that must produce the correct tonal balance.
This presented a problem for me, because my hands are not equipped for this kind of activity. Three months before my roora, I enlisted Tanatswa and her husband, Adebayor, to help me master gusvu. Tanatswa is my wife’s sister, which makes Adebayor my Bamkuru in Shona culture, a title that comes with both authority and responsibility over me. For two and a half months, they worked with me patiently. Eventually, they accepted the truth: there was no future here. Realizing improvement was no longer a realistic goal, they abandoned the idea and pivoted to strategy.
The plan was simple. Every time I was called upon to perform gusvu, everyone else would immediately join in so that my individual failures would be absorbed into the collective sound. On the day of the roora, I arrived with a full support team of gusvu specialists. Each time my in-laws called out “Mukwasha,” I would strike the opening clap, and the rest of my family would flood in behind me to complete the sequence. This arrangement held until someone from my wife’s family noticed what was happening and insisted that I perform the clap alone, without assistance. If my gorgeous wife is reading this, I would like her to know that I broke my palms for love.
In Mukwasha, Jah Prayzah outlines the many demands placed upon him by his in-laws, most of which feel less like custom and more like a carefully curated list of endurance tests. These include mastering gusvu, correctly addressing every relative by their totem, slaughtering a cow, harvesting prickly pears (madhorofiya), remaining permanently available for unspecified tasks whose purpose is never explained, and, naturally, providing money for an ever-expanding range of expenses.
I understood Jah Prayzah completely. He did not even need to list the full catalogue of demands to earn my sympathy. He could have stopped at gusvu and I would have surrendered immediately. It is a deeply arduous requirement, and I was spectacularly bad at it. My only consolation was that, at the very least, the roora squad looked immaculate in their clean girl makeup.
5. Dancehall Keddah – Mukwasha Imboko
In June 2018, Nigerian singer-songwriter Burna Boy woke up to a statistical anomaly that made no sense. His streams had jumped by over two hundred percent, driven almost entirely by a sudden and unexplained surge in plays for Ye, a song from his album Outside, which he had released five months earlier. Burna Boy is not a man unfamiliar with promotion, so he had already done the full post-release routine. But none of it accounted for this spike. Something had happened, and it had happened without his permission.
That something, as it turned out, was Kanye West. Kanye had just released an album titled ye, named after the abbreviated version of his own name. As fans rushed to streaming platforms in search of the album, they repeatedly encountered another result sitting quietly nearby: Burna Boy’s Ye. Fortunately for Burna, it was a great song. Kanye fans clicked, listened, and stayed.
Dancehall Keddah’s rise did not happen in quite the same way, but the mechanics are familiar. In 2021, he released the video for Mukwasha Imboko, the biggest song of his career by a considerable margin. The title and theme are borrowed from an infamous 2000s hit of the same name that inflicted permanent hearing damage on an entire generation of Zimbabweans. The vocals were handled by a man named Silver, whose performance ranks among history’s most catastrophic uses of the human voice. The reputation of silver has not taken a hit this severe since Judas Iscariot.
The instrumental was produced by Chegutu native Arx-Killah Beats, and it sounds exactly like what happens when someone experiments with FL Studio for the first time. Despite this, the song became culturally indestructible, joining the pantheon of early-2000s anthems alongside Jobho by Vabati Vevhangeri and Bvokonhua by Abilio Mutapate. To this day, Zimbabweans of a certain age return to YouTube in moments of weakness and type in those titles, which inadvertently elevated DK’s version into his most streamed song, doubling the numbers of the second biggest record in his catalogue.
DK’s Mukwasha Imboko is set, once again, during a lobola ceremony. DK plays the mukwasha, accompanied by his aunt, as they formally announce that they cannot meet the financial demands placed before them and will therefore excuse themselves from the gathering. Unlike in Oliver Mtukudzi’s predicament, however, the demands here are not absurd. No one is asking for an elephant’s tusk. In fact, most of the requests are modest, and at one point include bathroom detergent. Still, we need to remember DK is not operating at Oliver Mtukudzi’s financial altitude, so even reasonable demands can feel punitive.
Frustration eventually overrides diplomacy, and the mukwasha lashes out. He declares that if the demands continue, the father-in-law and his sons might as well marry the woman themselves. He delivers the line with open hostility and adds that he does not care if they label him mboko afterwards. I actually do not know what mboko means, but popular music has ensured that it is now inseparable from the idea of vakwasha. It reminds me of the Shona insult “musoro bhangu.” I have no idea what bhangu means, or whether the word even exists independently of the insult. At this point, it just functions as a cultural reflex. I think this is a very important issue that deserves scholarly attention: why is bhangu a term reserved only for musoro, and mboko only to vakwasha?
6. Killer T – Baba Vako Imboko
I stand corrected.
7. Cliftan Mystik – Mwana Wangu
Mwana Wangu, which I can confirm is based on true events, brings us back once more to the eternal standoff between tezvara and mukwasha. In the song, Cliftan plays the groom, using his gift for narrative to reconstruct the day of the ceremony before rewinding time to document every effort he made to ensure the moment would go well. None of it matters. The tezvara refuses to accept him as a suitable husband for his daughter, largely because Cliftan is Rastafarian, a detail that functions as a permanent disqualification.
Cliftan does not attempt to out-argue the tezvara, dismantle his logic, or reframe himself as acceptable. Instead, he presents the objections plainly, almost gently, and allows the weight of them to settle. The song works because of this restraint. Rather than insisting on his worth, Cliftan invites the listener to sit inside his disappointment, to experience the ceremony through his eyes and feel the humiliation of being dismissed for reasons that cannot be negotiated. It is this emotional honesty, combined with his vocal smoothness and lyrical wizardry, that makes Cliftan not only my favourite reggae/dancehall artist, but one of my favourite artists, full stop. To illustrate the depth of my admiration, I once took a leave of absence from work, boarded a plane, and flew to Kempton Park, where Cliftan lives, simply to record a song with him.
Storytime.
After winning two Zim HipHop Awards in 2023, including Best Album, a noticeable segment of the hip-hop audience assumed I was done. I do not think this was because they were tired of me, although that remains a possibility worth considering. More likely, it was because I had publicly declared that Treasure, my collaborative album with Synik, would be my final English-language project. Since I had never seriously explored another language in my music, this was interpreted as a retirement announcement. Instead, within a year, I released four Shona-language albums: Ekasi 1 & 2 and Ekwedu 1 & 2. These are my favourite Zimbabwean hip-hop albums of all time, a belief I hold deeply, even while recognising the bias and ethical complications of that statement.
Writing in Shona unlocked a capacity I did not know I possessed. It allowed me to manipulate meaning, subtext and wordplay in ways that still surprise me. Songs like Kune and Hanzvadzi came from this period, which I consider, without false modesty, examples of my exceptional writing. I would not say this publicly if the sentiment had not first been affirmed by Professor Shingi Mavima, the sharpest mind I know; Synik, my favourite rapper of all time; and Wilvanos, whose Software Engineering assignments I plagiarised and without whom I would not have graduated. That was enough validation. I have always loved it when intellectuals connect with my work.
Apologies for the self-indulgence. Back to the story.
While working on the Shona albums, I compiled a list of lyricists I wanted to collaborate with. The challenge was geography. The list included Canada-based Rumbii Ellis, Mlue Jay in South Africa, the perpetually mobile Dancehall Keddah, world-touring imbube maestro Vusa Mkhaya, whom I worked with on Kune, the gifted vocalists Culoe and Vuyo Brown, and, of course, Cliftan, whose base was Johannesburg. Through a combination of persistence and digital negotiation, I managed to work with everyone remotely except Cliftan, whose creative process required physical proximity. He needed to be in the room.
After failing to persuade him to send vocals remotely because he was not “feeling” the chemistry online, I flew from Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport to OR Tambo. My friend Tendai Magaya handled the logistics, and we met at Mastermind Records for a session with the legendary Mclyne Beats.
Watching Cliftan work was a lesson in seriousness. He approached the hook by first unpacking every line I had written, ensuring it aligned with the emotional centre of the song. I have only ever rewritten my lyrics at the request of two artists: Synik and Cliftan. In both cases, it was because my respect for them is mixed with genuine fear. When Cliftan felt a line weakened the song, he would tighten his face slightly, and I would immediately reach for my notebook and start rewriting.
The legendary Jnr Brown was also meant to appear on the song, and Tendai attempted to lure him from Pretoria via Uber. I will not disclose the feature price, but we had promised payment, and because Tendai and Mastermind were on good terms with him, Breezy feigned enthusiasm. “Oh, Malcom! I love that guy, he’s so good,” he said with the emotional investment of someone confirming attendance they do not intend to honour. It was so not convincing.
Expectedly, the feature never materialized, which I was kinda relieved about. I suspect Cliftan and Jnr Brown’s personalities would have clashed. I am not convinced a contender for the greatest Zimbabwean rapper of all time would have enjoyed receiving lyrical notes from an unknown underground reggae artist. The final version of the song featured just me, Cliftan, and Culoe, whose physical beauty I am remembering again as I write this. She would have immediately resolved my argument with Dez.
The session produced Bepa, from Ekwedu 2. I had initially titled the song Shanda, because it revolved around career-related wordplay, but Cliftan dismissed the title as generic and uninspired, so we used his suggestion instead. Bepa remains one of my favourite songs I have ever written. Cliftan and Culoe’s chemistry on the hook transformed it into something genuinely beautiful, and I remain deeply grateful for that collaboration.
Tendai called it the best-written song I had ever made. He passed away on the 13th of June this year in a road accident in Johannesburg. Rest in peace, my friend. I will make sure your son, Kendrick, grows up knowing how kind, joyful, and generous you were.
While I was still in Johannesburg, Professor Shingi Mavima heard a preview of Bepa. He was so impressed by the writing that he sent me a luxury watch as a gesture of appreciation for my contribution to literature. Prof is one of the three core writers at Riddims & Raps, alongside Dennis and myself. The founder and editor, Manando, also contributes, although I rarely express approval of him because he prioritises industry relationships over telling the truth, which sets his work apart from ours. That said, I would like to congratulate Riddims & Raps on winning the Best Online Media award at the 15th Zim HipHop Awards. Thank you to everyone who voted. This award means a great deal to Manando.
Because I was in Johannesburg at the time, Dennis collected the luxury watch on my behalf. When I returned to Zimbabwe after releasing Ekwedu 2, I contacted him to retrieve it. I never got it. That is how Dennis came to own the expensive luxury watch — which, legally speaking, is mine — that he now wears to every important occasion. As promised, I have defended my claim.
Congratulations, Dennis. I wish you a marriage filled with ease, laughter, and partnership. You are a genuinely kind soul, and I remain grateful for the countless ways you have shown up for me over the years. Happy matrimony, big brother. And thank you for agreeing that Melyssa is a baddie. Dez would not have stopped yapping.
Till next time.
