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Boniface Chimedza Arts Correspondent
Chitungwiza’S budding hip-hop trio ‘‘Saintflash’’ (Tawanda Zinyuku), ‘‘Swae’’ (Tinashe Magaragada) and ‘‘K-yung’’ (Tamuka Zimucha), who are known in music circles as ‘‘Chief Zone’’, have recently released a single.

The single is dubbed ‘‘Bag Rebenzi’’, which in this context is used in colloquial vernacular to mean a lot of money that is earned through hard work.

The birth of the hip-hop trio was pioneered by Zinyuku, who spearheaded the formation of Chief Zone in 2017, subsequently forging the trio’s creative forces to pursue their music career.

“Growing up in a neighbourhood where everyone was doing drugs, I decided to refrain from such activities and to use my talent instead, to make a difference in my community by writing and singing songs that will inspire other people to stay off the streets and motivate them to work hard for a better and brighter future,” said Zinyuku.

“However, for the dream to be fully established, I invited Tamuka Zimucha and Tinashe Magaragada, both of whom shared the same vision with me and eventually joined hands with me in forming this group that we then named Chief Zone,” Zinyuku said.

The single ‘‘Bag Rebenzi’’ was extracted from the trio’s six-track debut album named ‘‘Dripping Season’’, which was produced in 2017, upon the inception of the trio and is yet to fully penetrate the mainstream matrix of local radio stations and online music platforms.

Zinyuku stated that releasing the single ‘‘Bag Rebenzi’’ is a deliberate marketing strategy for promoting ‘‘Dripping Season’’, which they are expecting to be well received on local listening platforms after the successful circulation of the single.

Fungai Manuel, the group’s manager, who is also a public relations consultant, said that as part of their efforts to promote Chief Zone, they will be holding live performances in Chitungwiza.

“We are going to host an early Christmas party and perform at one of our local homes. We will also be engaging with various corporates who might want to showcase our music on their end of year events, though our live shows will predominantly be in Chitungwiza,” said Manuel.

The trio are currently working on the videos for the entire ‘‘Dripping Season’’ album.

The trio has recently been nominated for the ‘‘Chitown Music Entertainment and Lifestyle’’ (CMEL) Awards in the Best New School Act category.