By Sukuoluhle Ndlovu
When Hip-Hop Meets Theatre debut concert is set for this Saturday at Reps Theatre in Harare.
The concert has been organised by Nyasha Munashe (pictured) whilst Jason Gwanzura, Thuthukani ‘TK’ Ndlovu and Surprise Choir will be performing artists.
The Movement combines dramatic performance, poetry and storytelling with rapping, moving beyond musical performance to narrative driven stage shows.
In an interview with the organizer of the show, Artist Nyasha Munashe he said he wants to shift the perception towards Hip Hop.
“For many people, these two worlds, hip-hop and theatre, are seemingly in-congruent. Hip-Hop is often seen to be for loud and boisterous audiences, whereas theatre is associated with a more elegant and classy viewership. I want to carve out a career in bringing harmony to these seemingly opposed phenomena. The message of the show is to shift perception surrounding Hip-Hop within Zimbabwe and display its value as a pedagogical tool and vehicle for social education and its propensity as a tool for artistic expression through theatre,” said Munashe
Munashe stated that he expresses himself through music.
“Writing has always been a passion of mine and hip-hop is my favourite genre of music, those two together encapsulate who I am as an artist and why this will be a hip-hop show. My music, hip-hop, is an expression of myself, my views on life, politics, faith etc. I blend my backgrounds in journalism, media studies and theology in my writing and hip-hop allows me to express that musically.
He added that the audience must look forward to something different.
“The audience should look forward to experiencing something different and thought provoking. I want to shift perception surrounding Hip-Hop within Zimbabwe and display its value in our society as a tool for artistic expression and education as I mentioned earlier. The guest performers I have added to the show also hold the same sentiments and are doing so in their different fields. These are Jason Gwanzura and RayKaz, two award-winning Hip-Hop artists, and Thuthukani Ndlovu, a spoken word artist with international experience,” he said.
Munashe is both a product and practitioner of Hip-Hop Culture. His lyrical offerings fuse together the worlds of faith, history, academia, theology an identity to form a discography and narrative that shifts perception of what Hip-Hop I and can be and offer ode to the culture that gave license for him to express himself.
