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Senior Arts Reporter
The year 2021 will go down in history as the year of singers!

Unlike recent years when we experienced a domination of the airwaves by dancehall acts and rappers- as hip hop is gradually gaining momentum with the millennials quickly embracing the genre compared to yesteryear generations.

In a rare occurrence, we had three of the top “R’n’B” artists in Zimbabwe dropping amazing bodies of work.

If you want, you can to call it contemporary genre as some say rhythm and blues is a bit rare.

Bryan K led the pack with the release of “Half Time with Bibo” which has been getting decent streams on various online platforms.

Soon after, we saw Nyasha David and Trevor Dongo releasing palatable projects which are doing very well on local radio and well complemented by some well scripted visuals.

Nyasha David

Ladies were not left out in the mix of things as we saw Tamy Moyo dropping her much anticipated second album titled ‘Bvudzijena’. The album has been getting good rotation on radio and heavy streams across all major digital platforms.

However, there was another magical offering that was released in November titled “Manera” from one of the most outstanding vocalists, songwriters and musicians that Zimbabwe has been blessed with. His name is Mbeu.

Though not an RnB singer, his vocals are inimitable. The Norton-based act is in a league of his own.

On his fourth studio offering, one clear difference from the rest of his albums is the improvement in the mixing and mastering.

When listening one gets to comprehend all the elements that were inserted in each of the eight tracks to come up with a beautiful sound that will definitely resonate with music lovers globally regardless of the fact they may not understand Shona.

The arrangements are quite good too but more could have been done to make the tracks tighter and more competitive on the cutthroat music streets.

On a sad note, since the release of the project a fortnight ago, there is still no trace of it on most of the major online platforms except for Gateway Stream.

This is a sign of the management sleeping on the job and it is such hiccups that have a bearing on the failure by artists to penetrate other markets beyond our borders.

Whilst it is good to have it on the local online platform, it is also important to harness the power that the bigger players in the game have.

Another area that management needs to invest in is the monetization of the brand.

Whilst Mbeu has been getting gigs in the last two years regardless of covid19 slowing things down it appears there is a lack of capitalisation on the momentum the lad currently has.

Time and chance are given to all, this is Mbeu’s time and the team behind needs to step-up.

Recently the singer was two hours late to his own album launch gig at Bar Rouge in the capital much to the dismay of his fans.

Such mishaps cannot be tolerated if the brand Mbeu is to go far.

Lastly, featuring Jah Prayzah and Glen Washington proves that Mbeu is way ahead of his time. Regrettably, his genre is not strong on Zimbabwe’s music mainstream but had it been elsewhere in the world, this project would have definitely been in the running for album of the year.