ZBH Bans Abusive Music
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings has banned urban grooves music whose lyrics are deemed obscene, mischievous, blasphemous, degrade women or view them as mere sex objects.
city.com has it on good authority that Extra Large’s hit songs Small House and House Girl, Maskiri’s Madam Mombeshora and Zimhamha, Decibel’s Madhara and Nasty Trix’s Chimoko Chidanger, among others, will no longer get airplay on ZTV and all four radio stations.
Maskiri is probably the biggest casualty as virtually none of the songs from his album “Blue Movie” is getting airplay because of its sexual innuendoes and vulgar lyrics.
His song “Miscarriage” from his album “Tapinda Tapinda” was roundly condemned by some sections of the public who felt that the young musician was oblivious to the trauma women went through when they miscarried. Worse still, the controversial Maskiri seemed to make a mockery of the sanctity of human life. ZBH’s head of radio services, Mr Allan Chiweshe, appeared to confirm the ban when he said the national broadcaster frowned upon music that infringed the rights of Zimbabwean citizens regardless of race, colour, sex or creed.
“If you listen to the radio now you can hear that we no longer give air play to songs that reduce women to nothing or idolise them as mere sexual objects. “Some of these songs contain obscene and sexist lyrics. If you listen carefully to that song Jatropha by Dino Mudondo it implies that all women want in a marriage is sex,” Mr Chiweshe said.
He added that as a public broadcaster it was ZBH’s duty to promote and safeguard Zimbabwe’s cultural values and norms through music. However, Extra Large’s Jimmy accused ZBH and people who are against their music as being misdirected.
“These people do not understand us, we educate people on these crucial aspects like hygiene and faithfulness in a comical way. Women should understand that our song ‘Small House’ was never written to insult or degrade them.
“In spite of that people are not comfortable with our songs, I believe what we are singing is based on reality and sometimes people hate to be told the truth,” Jimmy said. ExQ concurred with Jimmy saying there was nothing immoral or distasteful about the songs that have been blacklisted. Another urban grooves artiste Stunner accused ZBH of trying to “kill” urban grooves by denying “perfectly good” music airplay on national radio and television.
“I don’t understand what these people want us to do. These songs that they are denying airplay are really good compositions. As for obscene and sexually suggestive lyrics it boils down to individual interpretation but personally I do not see anything derogatory about them.
“ZBH should come clean and tell us what they really want because they are killing our music. It is very sad because we are going nowhere with this. Everywhere you go, women have always been regarded as sex idols. Why, for example, did they not ban ‘Naye’ by Tongai Moyo?” Stunner asked.
[Via The Herald]
