By Samuel Murenga Samnyanga
Several faces have been thrown around claiming to be the originators of the name Zim dancehall and yet the originator of the name chose silence over noise.
But recently, the name who coined the name Zim dancehall is alive and very much involved in the promotion and development of the genre.
Stating it as-a-matter-of fact Samuel Murenga Samanyanga, a former ZBCTV producer/presenter par exellence put the debate to rest he writes:
Well I just thought I should add clarity about who named it Zim Dancehall, As I am the creator and producer of the Popular Reggae show Rockers Vibes on ZTV (Initially called Roots Rockers Vibes), initially presented by Ataman, and Mr Muffin, I then tweeked the name to Rockers vibes, whose first presenter was Love Jones, followed by Major E, Dr Dread, Isreal, Winky D, Ras Jabu.
At that time Zimbabwe was implementing the 75% local content, however Rockers Vibes got a reprieve and we were playing 25% local content because they were a few artists in the genre of Zim reggae and dancehall.
The established record companies such as Gramma, AMC and RTP weren’t helping because they didn’t see the value in this genre, it’s only High Density Records, Movip Studios, and Country Boy records who incubated the growth of this genre, I then created a, 10minute, segment of the 50 minute long, Rockers Vibes and classified it specifically as Zim Dancehall segment as we focused on the local sounds and promoting of local dancehall, all my presenters from Major E, Love Jones, Winky D and Trevor Hall were the ones who then promoted and popularized the term Zim Dancehall as per the script I would have written for them, the betacam tapes with the evidence to support this claim are still there at ZBC archives.
For further confirmation you can also refer to a Documentary Magazine Series which I produced in 2016-2017 called Evolution of Dancehall and Reggae, a concept created by Elder Teeone Mazhangara for The Zim digital content creation project funded by the Zimbabwean Government through The Broadcasting Authority Zimbabwe .
Just thought I should add clarity.
NB: Samuel Samanyanga is a seasoned journalist he writes in his personal capacity. He can be contacted on Facebook on the page Samanyanga Samuel. He produced several musical programmes on ZBCTV.
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