Reflecting on 2016 entertainment sector

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 09:48:40 +0000

By Terence Miselo

These elections whose wounds are now drying up affected a number of sectors and the entertainment industry was no exception.

As we review this sector, we will specifically dwell on the advancements, challenges and indeed notable contributions to the industry in the areas of film, theatre, music, TV and radio among others.

True to the general acceptance that politics played a major influence last year, we will first begin by looking at the music sector. Musically, we will all agree that our artistes had a tough time to ignore politics last year. For the first time in the history of Zambian entertainment, we saw a lot of musicians endorsing presidential candidates. This in a way swayed their attention of making music and for the greater period of last year, political songs took a larger percentage of airplay. This came with celebrity public endorsements, cadreism and hero-worshiping. Of course, this high level involvement of our artistes in politics attracted criticism and debate. But whichever way you looked at it, wrong or right, 2016 demanded for every situation to be political. This is the more reason we saw musicians holding on to their projects. There were few album releases and launches because every mind was polluted with politics. To this regard, it was political music that sold and no wonder, JK, Chester, Dandy, Pilato and them all dominated airplay with their political anthems.

It may even be proper to name ‘Dununa Reverse’ as the song of the year 2016 as it was the most played song.

Now, much as we saw this artistic involvement into politics, many are times that some artistes were asked to take caution of what they were involving themselves in mainly because politics is about win and lose. Meaning, many who supported the winning side have a greater chance to advance their music careers because naturally they are on the easier side of things.

To the contrary, those that chose to support the losing team will have a difficult patch to advance. This is the danger of artistes getting into politics. I am very happy to note that some musicians who found themselves on the seemingly wrong side are now making amends to align themselves with the winning team.

With that said, we now look forward to a competitive 2017 in as far as music is concerned. I know that so far, there is new music yet to be unleashed. Some artistes already offloaded what they held on to in the last quarter of 2016.

I know of DJ Cozmo who launched his wonderfully packaged album ‘Thee Statement’ was among the last artistes to release an album in 2016. This plus many other releases in the last quarter of last year will make advancements in 2017. It will also be ideal to recognize some good efforts made in the music sector despite the whole nation being swallowed in politics. T-Sean and Shenky stood out as two of the many producers we saw that became consistent and influential. Their neat productions as well as mastering could make them stand out as best producers of the year 2016.

We also saw creative music taking a bigger platform and stage thanks to DStv’s Trace Africa for the exposure. This in itself encouraged our artistes and musicians to work very hard and produce music and videos worth the international platform. I am not surprised that this year will even be bigger and better for Zambian artistes to penetrate the international scene. Urban Hype, J-Rox, Roberto, Kaladoshas, Cleo Ice Queen, Cactus and Mic Burner to name only a few led the way in making sure Zambia is recognized outside.

The gospel music was also at its peak in 2016 due to the many social challenges and unexplained national disturbances like ritual killings. With such challenges, a call to encouraging and soul healing music becomes inevitable which is the more reason we saw a lot of gospel releases. This was coupled perfectly well with the call for peace and unity before and after the general elections. Kings Malembe Malembe, Ephraim, Pompi, Suwilanji plus more did very well in this genre to keep that strong balance between social life and Christianity.

The film sector was not as highly affected by politics as was the music. To this effect, we recorded a huge success in terms of growing this side of art. We saw good and most promising productions notable ones included Owas Ray Mwape and family with ‘Strictly By Invitation.’ We also saw Cassie Kabwita’s ‘Kwacha’. Just these two films among the many unmentioned, will prove to you that Zambian film industry has a greater future. What is even encouraging is that we are now able to tell stories in our own social settings. These are stories that reflect our own events, lifestyle and set up. Given a chance this year, I see film taking over the larger part of entertainment. Thanks again, to Zambezi Magic on DStv Channel 160, Zambian filmmakers and actors are motivated and we are yet to see more productions.

There is worrying concern about the drop in theatrical productions. I know the media is partly to blame on this score as there was little coverage on theater last year. My advice is that the theatre bodies must constantly engage the media this year so that we highlight this important aspect of art which was very silent last year.

I would conclude this review by commending the introduction of the Zambia Radio Awards. This is a big boost to radio entertainment. This will surely improve the appreciation of radio in Zambia which is key to entertainment.

Despite the criticism, the birth of the Zambian Radio Awards was the biggest score in 2016 of Zambian entertainment especially that we had no major entertainment awards last year. And sadly, we are likely not to have the Zambian Music Awards this year, although this information is subject to confirmation.

With all this said and done, we anticipate an eventful 2017 in terms of entertainment. We will surely witness growth in music, film, radio and television.