Welcome to the fourth edition of The Greedy Weekend! What is the Greedy Weekend you might ask? Well, it's a new column where we discuss and review some of the weekend events, that we would've attended. It really should've been a podcast but you know web hosting is way cheaper than microphones. So here we are with our round-up of the weekend of 26 to 27 July 2024.
The Listening Party
The Listening Party is a pop up music event organised by Incubator ZW! It is a two hour long intimate concert with some of the rising stars in the music space and it concludes with a conversation between the artists performing that particular day and the audience. It's a platform for experimentation with the chance of getting honest and sometimes very frank feedback. The event's current home is the pavilion at the Zimbabwe German Society in the Greater Harare CBD area.
Hosted every last Friday of the month, the most recent edition featured TVWVNDV, Tariro neGitare and SAI. An eclectic collection of artists in both sound and career progression. on of the music amongst everyone.
TVWVNDV kicked things off with a session of house music on the decks. His energetic and dark toned selections were mainly in the vein of deep house and Afro tech. As the audience poured in, everyone was bobbing their heads and you could feel an unspoken appreciation. While his transitions don't yet have clear anthemic finesse, you can tell TVWVNDV has a good ear on him. The part time DJ discovered his love for curating musical experiences while living in Rwanda.
To escape the monotony of East African sounds which were the staple everywhere in the country, him and a few friends started hosting their own music events. TVWVNDV the DJ was born, and although still learning the craft, if you need him on the decks for an event, he will be there.
Following the set, I finally got my debut experience of the gifted Tariro neGitare, and although this was first experience of her it's certainly not going to be the last. Armed with a guitar and a soulful voice, the singer took us on an engaging sonic experience. She dived into stirring renditions of tracks from her catalogue such as "Nhamo," and "Chitima." The latter having the audience breakout in voice. There was also a healthy serving of classics from the likes of Hugh Masekela and Oliver Mtukudzi.
To close out the night, rnb and neo-soul vocalist SAI took to the stage. While she may have been timid in the conversations she had with the audience, there was certainly nothing timid about her voice. It's usually rare for the live experience to sound better than the mixed and mastered audio on Spotify and Apple Music (a credit to SAI and her guitarist on the day Maestro), but SAI is one of those exceptions. Taking us through a journey about love, SAI some of her most recent releases, with exclamation point being a rendition of "Insecure" that must've stretched her vocal chords to their limits.
It was another memorable Listening Party, and to put the icing on the cake, I realised that Zimbabwe German Society had implemented all the recommendations for better accessibility from my last visit. A rarity with most Zimbabwean venues.
Greedysouth rating: 6.9/10
KAOS
"Wangu uri outside papi?" blared into my right ear from the phone speaker and in my left ear I heard the words from the direction of restaurant's entrance, followed by a shout of excitement as my good friend Solomon saw me. Although always happy to see me, the excitement wasn't simply because this was a reunion 2 weeks in the making (my friends don't have a good laugh when I'm not there because I'm the funniest person alive) but for the communion of house music we were about to partake in.
While Harare's entertainment scene is awash with disc jockeys that have become slaves to populism (I myself am a slave to it sometimes) and simply regurgitate the weeks top ten radio chart in it's original form, KAOS is a small cocoon of African rhythm curated to be a journey through sound. The Ace Frvr founded event is approaching 2 years of existence, and to say it has coalesced a following around itself feels like putting it wrong, because KAOS feels like a community united through house music.
Hosting it's most recent edition at Emagumeni in Helensvale, the event has become a platform for not only those established behind the decks but rising talents. Once upon a time a solo show, the KAOS stage has become a curated platform for a host of talent on the decks to weave together a tapestry of house music.
As the sun began making it's late afternoon descent, Pretty Gangsta was on the decks, blending together the honeyed rhythms of soulful amapiano. Quite easily my new favourite Harare DJ, she belted out songs that felt apt to the moment. If you were without your sense of sight and could only depend on sound, the music would whisper of an approaching sunset.
Ace Frvr was handed the CDJ baton next and from the moment he took over, he elevated the tempo. As the sun kissed the earth and painted the sky in ever changing hues, Ace painted his own sonic masterpiece with tech laden piano tunes that were the soundtrack to my profound realisations about the beauty of life.
However if the night belonged to any one man, it was Jay. The CDJ was the tool of delivery, while music was the intoxicant that left a sea of altered states of consciousness at Emagumeni. Old favourites were given new life, as the DJ played hits of old like Big Nuz' "Umlilo" over what sounded like a 3-step house beat.
As night came, Steve Atambire wailed to the stars over a Samuel Cosmic beat while the man himself was on the decks, before the crowd shouted to Halu! that they wanted to party. Another celebration house reached it's climax and the parts of me that desired African rhythm, felt like they had just had a feast.
While certainly some favourites were off their game in terms of transitions and beat-mixing, and I had certainly experienced better performances from others, I was completely sold on KAOS as a concept.
Greedysouth rating: 7.4/10
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