By Marshall Shonhai
SCANDALOUS!!
That’s the only word to describe ZIMA22
Let me start by apologizing for bringing this to you all a little belatedly, the weekend was a wild one especially with one Sinach and the crème de la crème of Zimbabwe’s gospel music in town. It is a bit late but not addressing it would be a travesty.
Let me say it freely without fear and without favour, after last Saturday night’s disgraceful and embarrassing affair two things must happen. Either ZIMA closes shop or the whole lot at ZIMA does the honorable thing and resign and let other capable people run those awards.
What happened last Saturday night at Country Club was a national disaster, what ZIMA did Saturday night was to drag the name of our nation, the music industry and the sponsors of the night into disrepute.
What a mess, what a monumental mess. An insupportable and inexcusable fuckery! A failure of epic proportions. What we were subjected to that night was not only shocking but it was criminal, shameful and despicable.
That was unforgivable,
That level of disorganization is unpardonable.
I will not even bore anyone with the details of what didn’t work, many people came to me on the night demanding that I review the event and I told some that there was nothing to review save to say the whole thing was a scandal! Some even suggested that if I was not honest then I am captured.
Everything was a mess, from having no ushers to receive the guests, to the MCs disappearing from the stage. From tables falling and spilling drinks on guests to obscene results. The whole thing was on autopilot, it did not seem like anyone was in charge of anything.
Whilst one form of confusion or another was going on on the stage, the guests were having their own thing going. I think people eventually realized that if they did not entertain themselves the whole night was going to be a long bore. So they hopped from table to table taking selfies and basically whiling up time.
The long unexplained gaps between the categories were just atrocious. Those gaps were filed with amapiano music and this irritating gunshot thing that the silly DJ kept playing. Save for a few local songs from Soul Jah Love, Nutty O Freeman, EXQ and a few others, the night belonged to South Africa’s amapiano. Tell you what? You will not go to the SA Music Awards and catch them playing Zim dancehall throughout the event, NEVER!
Saturday night was not about not having money, no! Saturday night was all about an organization that is confused, directionless and clueless about what they are doing. Dates for this event were announced in September 2021 and come February 2022, the event looked like it was thought of just the day before and people had a few hours to prepare and had to make do with what’s there.
Even the corporates we cry for to sponsor us, how do they sponsor such a deplorable mess? Who wants their brand to be dragged in the mud? If heads do not roll after Saturday night then we can kiss goodbye and forget any further participation from a lot of artists.
To be honest after their last event in 2020, I did not think ZIMA could ever go any lower but on that night they outdid themselves. They conspired to put up the most boring, most disjointed, most disorganized event in living memory. Most of us could not stomach the nonsense and we left before the night was over.
Let us be honest with ourselves. The people at ZIMA are way out of their depth, running an awards and the actual event is beyond their understanding and their competence.
The tone had been set a couple nights before the event at the nominees cocktail. It was also another tasteless and drab night.
This was an insult and ZIMA owes this nation an apology for the way they mocked everyone in attendance.
The time to tell you Cdes to shape up is long done, it’s time for you to ship out. If you all thought you could get away with what you did then newsflash. The ship of our patience has since sailed, not only has it sailed but it has reached safe harbor, and not only has it reached safe harbor, it has since dropped anchor
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