Uhuru launches protest music album

Patience and perseverance finally paid off for Uhuru Arts Network (UAN) when it launched its debut album, From Day 1, after almost five years of recording glitches and deferment of production of the album.

On 16 February 2009, MISA-Zimbabwe partnered UAN in launching the album at the Mannenberg Arts Café in Harare marking the end of the recording and production agonies experienced by the artists led by Biko Mutsvaurwa.
UAN started working on the album in 2004 on a low cost budget. That same year the computer software packed resulting in the loss of the pre-production material. Undaunted, the artists started all over again only to meet with a similar mishap in 2006. Despite these technical drawbacks the album was eventually launched on16 February 2009 – almost five years after the inception of the idea.

The album is a compilation of rich poetic commentaries reflecting the shrinkage of democracy in present day Zimbabwe and the inherent socio-economic and political traumas experienced by the youth.
Mutsvaurwa told guests at the launch ceremony that the album focuses on dissenting voices clamouring for democratic space for the people of Zimbabwe to freely express, associate, choose and assemble in line with the provisions of the Bill of Rights.

The introductory poem narrates how tear gas canisters, live ammunition, harassments, abductions, detentions and torture have suffocated the citizens’ right to freedom of expression. Mutsvaura vows that he will not muffle his voice as it is the right of artists as social commentators to keep the nation informed through music and poetry.

Tabani Moyo, MISA-Zimbabwe Advocacy Officer, said it was encouraging that more and more artists were speaking out against travesties of justice at a time when Jestina Mukoko, the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project and freelance photojournalist Shadreck Manyere remain detained. Noting that the arts industry was fast becoming a critical platform for conveying information to the people, he urged Zimbabweans at large through various platforms to increase pressure on the authorities to free the media space in Zimbabwe.

Rashweat Mukundu
Programme Specialist: Media Freedom Monitoring
MISA Regional Secretariat
21 Johann Albrecht Street
Private Bag 13386
Windhoek, Namibia
Tel: + 264 61 232 975
Fax:+264 61 248016
Mobile: 00 264 813 675 362
E mail rashweat@misa.org, misaalerts@gmail.com

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