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Toya Delazy

Naledi Sande Arts Reporter
The Toya Delazy concert held at the Harare International Conference Centre last Saturday as part of her “Rocking the City Tour” failed to live to expectations. The event was Toya Delazy’s second visit to Zimbabwe after HIFA last year but it was not as memorable as anticipated. Attendees complained bitterly that the concert was poorly promoted which led to the poor attendance.

Toya Delazy was brought by Minky Walters of Sound Event Management who had to move the concert venue from Borrowdale Race Course to HICC under a week’s notice. The show, which was supposed to start at 7pm, opened an hour later and Walters confirmed that the artistes would not perform to an empty auditorium.

“At 7pm there were very few people that had arrived and for the artistes it was hard to perform for such a small crowd, so I was advised to start later,” said Walters. Despite the poor turnout, local artistes were amazing with Tammy, Ammara Brown and Tytan giving a fiery performance.

Rising hip-hop sensation Sharky, real name Marshall Muchenje who was chosen by Toya in a competition held on Facebook to open for her, gave a good performance proving that hip-hop is here to stay.

Although Delazy tried to burn the house down with an erotic performance from her dancers, the presentation was not good enough. Her voice was not good and the sound system was also poor, which affected many artistes that performed on the night.

“Maybe it is because she has just come from another concert in Zanzibar but she is off key most of the times, I just think I should go back to listening to her edited tracks than this,” said one reveller named Tracy.

Toya performed six songs including, hit tracks “Love is in the Air”, “My City” and “Pump it On” before calling it a night. With HICC holding capacity of 4 500 people, the show started with a turn-out of just above 200 people and by the time Toya was halfway through her performance most people had left the venue.

A fan said change of venue could have affected the show. “Since this was a masalad show, most live in Borrowdale and areas nearby and these people do not like crossing the town for anything so the venue was not the best for them. We should have done it at a venue like Borrowdale Country Manor,” said an attendee. Fans looked bored and most of them were heard regretting why they wasted their cash and time on such a flop.