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Robert Mukondiwa
It was the early 2000s.

There was a chap who was on radio and had smuggled his voice onto the airwaves thanks to a fresh local content policy that had been ushered in by the Government which would see new indigenous musicians getting precious airspace.

It was uncharted territory for the new young black voices.

Now this chap came with something that sounded like a plain conversation accompanied by musical riffs.

“Ndiri musalala,” he sang. Or rather said.

It was a song so many, many sang along to. Mostly by those below the age of five.

It was a great way to learn how to speak but hardly anything that could be expected to be sung by any mature person beyond being a feel good tune.

Many would no doubt fall by the wayside as this new music, urban grooves, progressed. This guy, one EXQ, would be expected to be one of those that would fall and not last the distance the critics said.

How wrong they were.

Now, many Urban Grooves graves are strewn around the nation and perhaps in all fairness there is none that remains.

Except that one chap whom people said was a lame lyricist and would soon fizzle out and die.

Now snuggled in the suspicious secret society that is Military Touch Movement, EXQ is probably the biggest prospect going forward as he has managed to stay the course and create bombshell songs and sounds as he has progressed, recreating himself with every turn and showing that his mastery as a lyricists, his weakest point in the past, has been worked on.

And boy has he done a great job.

Mr Putiti (put it) is super cool these days riding high. Very cool. As cool as the other side of a pillow type of cool.

“Nzenza”, “Pahukama”, “Tsvigiri”, all those have become vicious club anthems.

EXQ has a lot of problems. One of the problems he seems to be encountering is that he doesn’t seem to be able to put a foot wrong-and everybody knows that is a good problem to be plagued with.

Another problem is that he seems to be overshadowing most if not all the people in his secret society and there are others who hate sitting in an eclipse.

Either way, the world may probably have not even heard the tip of the iceberg around the genius of EXQ and his solid rhymes and beats.

He is incapable of failure and the stone that the builder thought would one day give and crumble has become the diamond propping the building no less and he doesn’t seem to be stopping.

With Roki living in the rurals with that beautiful gem of a voice, Urban Grooves itself could have been firmly in its grave.

But EXQ, that unlikely hero, stands firm today as the new substantive Commander in Chief of Urban Grooves pending inauguration and there certainly is no Constitutional Court challenge to his landslide win and claim to the enviable crown of President and last man standing in Urban Grooves.

A toast!