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Brenda Phiri Entertainment Reporter
The award season has been ablaze for a while now and local and international headlines have been awash with updates.
Channel O awards came and went and the MTV Africa Music Awards come alive on June 7, 2014 at the ICC Durban.
A lot of African artistes are battling for supremacy in 15 different categories.
From best African group to best new act, we have the likes of Micasa, Mafikizolo, Davido and Tiwa Savage sitting pretty on the nomination list.

All those categories and still Zimbabwe does not fit into one.
It is disappointing how local artistes continue to be absent from such awards all these years.

Back in the day, some would argue that other regional countries are more competitive and have state of the art equipment for producing quality videos.
This argument is rather invalid now as the so called “state of the art equipment” are now available in local studios.

Model cum-film maker Melgin Tafirenyika even has a good quality movie “I will marry myself” that plays regularly on Africa Magic.
In fact, video makers like Angel Arts boast of producing HD videos for local musicians.

All this said, what then would be the excuse for failing to make a mark on the regional music scene.
Could it be that our artistes are being overlooked or they are not talented enough?

For over a decade now, South Africa and Nigeria have been dominating in the regional scene. This has resulted in the countries making positive strides on the international music market.

International stars, P Square are an example of African musicians who have gained international acclaim after dominating regional music station Channel O years ago.

While they made waves with songs like “Busy Body”, they have since upped their game and are now featuring Rick Ross on their songs.
Such is the importance of dominance on the regional scene. This is because the only way to go after conquering Africa is the international scene.

As mentioned before, years ago it was our neighbours down South and Nigeria who had the bigger piece of the pie.
In recent years, Angola, Namibia, Tanzania and Zambia’s presence is beginning to be felt on regional music channels like Trace Africa.

It boils down to the question; “ where is Zimbabwe in all this?” Yes there was Kwekwe based Dj Stavo Lengoma’s video on Channel O, then there was Blackbird’s “Waiting for Love”, Tuku and a few others. Where are the rest of the Zimbabwean musicians?