Artists Must Support One Another

WE recently had the pleasure of being blessed by the beautiful sounds of the Matongo family in our small mining town of Rosh Pinah.

I have listened to the new release from Gazza where he features Mshoza, a female kwaito artist from SA, in one of his songs. On the other hand, I also listened to a Matongo song featuring a local female artist Zanele, who I think is better than Mshoza.I was very glad to see in the first place that our music is really growing and at a fast pace.But you hear artists talking saying we want the public to start supporting the local music, which we do, but, the local artists are not supporting and marketing each other or in this case I felt that Gazza could’ve featured Zanele instead of Mshoza and would have got something better.It should not always be about monetary benefits, there is also benefit in the feeling of seeing someone you groomed grow.There are so many bad things going around that I feel are limiting factors for progress in our music industry.I for one do not favour any record label or stable over the other, good music I do appreciate.I like seeing growth in Namibia as a whole.We still have a long way to go in terms of maturity in different sectors.I have a few suggestions, if they’re not already implemented, that include a forum where we can air our concerns and discuss possible areas of improvement and also emphasise what is good; a website where we can view all the Namibian artists and get info about them Armando Nakwafila Via e-mailOn the other hand, I also listened to a Matongo song featuring a local female artist Zanele, who I think is better than Mshoza.I was very glad to see in the first place that our music is really growing and at a fast pace.But you hear artists talking saying we want the public to start supporting the local music, which we do, but, the local artists are not supporting and marketing each other or in this case I felt that Gazza could’ve featured Zanele instead of Mshoza and would have got something better.It should not always be about monetary benefits, there is also benefit in the feeling of seeing someone you groomed grow.There are so many bad things going around that I feel are limiting factors for progress in our music industry.I for one do not favour any record label or stable over the other, good music I do appreciate.I like seeing growth in Namibia as a whole.We still have a long way to go in terms of maturity in different sectors.I have a few suggestions, if they’re not already implemented, that include a forum where we can air our concerns and discuss possible areas of improvement and also emphasise what is good; a website where we can view all the Namibian artists and get info about them Armando Nakwafila Via e-mail