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Reckson Mandizvidza Entertainment Reporter
Chimurenga Music Company (CMC), which handles the affairs of Chimurenga musician Dr Thomas Mapfumo has blasted local music promoters for providing misleading facts about the musician’s homecoming shows scheduled for September this year.
Speaking through their publicist Blessing Vava, CMC said they had nothing to do with the local promoters who are misleading fans on the musician’s homecoming gig dubbed “Gudo Mumunda” as it is their company which is solely handling both the promotion and marketing of the shows.

“We disassociate ourselves from claims by some local music promoters that they have already sealed deals with Dr Mapfumo for the homecoming shows.

“Such claims are not only lies and unfounded but they are unfortunate, very unprofessional and are a ploy to gain cheap mileage by those spreading the lies, which is not a good thing at all.

“We are just reading about these shows in the papers, yet it’s not true at all” explained Vava.

Vava said it was the trend of local promoters to fleece huge amounts from shows while the artistes get peanuts, which he says is not good for the growth of the music industry .

“We are aware of how these so-called promoters have been taking advantage of musicians, fleecing them by giving them peanuts whilst they are making huge sums of money,” said Vava.

Vava also took a swipe at Chipaz Promotion saying CMC was not impressed by the way the promoters handled the lifetime recognition award which “Mukanya” was honoured with at Chipaz 10th anniversary celebrations.

“Though we appreciate the recognition of Dr. Mapfumo’s immense contribution to the arts industry, we find it rather strange that the conveners of the awards did not bother to communicate with us so that we could have made prior arrangements and send our representative.

“The only time when Dr Mapfumo knew of the award was through a phone conversation from Chamu Chiwanza of AAG whilst he was collecting the award on behalf of the musician,” explained Vava.

In response to the claims, Chimbodza who runs Chipaz Promotions said his organisation had communicated to the Mukanya camp.

“We invited the Mukanya camp just as we did all the other artistes but we did not tell anyone that we were going to present them with awards so all the artistes who received awards had no idea that they were in for some recognition.

“I was hoping to surprise the artistes with the awards and I did not want them to come knowing that they were there for an award but to be there for the celebrations of growth in the sector,” explained Chimbodza.

Chimbodza hinted that all the other artistes who received the lifetime awards had no prior knowledge of what was going to take place but came to grace the event.