My truth is your truth...

A realisation of a truth that cuts deep A realisation of a truth that cuts deep, leaving me with waves of please forgive me
and I am sorry.
A realisation of a truth that puts me out of my comfort illusion of its okay , leaving me with waves of I hope you see I know the truth .
my truths is really not my own but your truth too
I have wished , hoped to twist and change the notion. but my feet have not carried me far enough for me not to see the truth in the blurred vision behind me.
my truth is your truth
my journey is not my own but your teacher
my pain is not for me but for your strength
my fear is not mine to conquer but yours to bridge through
my joy is not my own but a rainbow of hope for you
A realisation that my life is not my own but is yours
my life
a teacher
a comforter
an inspiration
the truth that cuts deep is that we all have this truth our life is not our own but belongs to everyone to be touched , changed ,loved and saved by you.
hence live , breathe, smile and be free, be you and you will leave a story that will impact a generation needing to find truth in your story in them.

#kiki

Starlight Dancing

Speaking of events, today on my featured list I want to highlight an event hosted by the Ballet School of Zimbabwe. Happening at the Ballet Centre, 109, East Road, Avondale every night at 6.30pm from Wednesday 24 to Sunday 30 September, 2018. This show features different dance schools on open air stage in the grounds of the center with tap modern, ballet, contemporary, hip hop and lyrical styles on display.

“Starlight Dancing”, which is the Dance Trust of Zimbabwe’s annual outdoor production was established over 35 years ago in a bid to provide senior dancers from all dancing studios an opportunity to perform (13+). It started as “Ballet in the Park” and was staged on the concrete stage in the Harare Gardens, later moved to the Ballet Centre and “Starlight Dancing” was born.

Approximately 100 dancers have been rehearsing different types of dance in order to provide an entertaining and varied programme.

Preparations are in full swing with the Masimba Group having erected the stage free of charge. The Dance Trust of Zimbabwe is very grateful to them – they have provided the stage every year since “Starlight Dancing” began. This weekend rehearsals on stage will take place and the finishing touches done. Over the years this production has been enjoyed by both the dancers and the public so we hope that the 2018 production will receive the same amount of support.

Featured: KayGee40

So coming up first on my featured list, is an artist who’s striving to come first in every aspect of his career. Originally from the streets of Mutare, KayGee40 is not only inspiring to take over the music industry with his Afro-Soul sound but is the first Zim artist to drop a unisex fragrance range named after his trending single, Sterek.

It seems only fitting that his new single dropping this Friday the 21st of September is called Tora Mari, The song featuring Dj Shugeta and Nyasha Timbe is all about the grind and making money in this industry whilst also having fun of course because when the beat hits you can’t help but want to dance.



The man himself says, “This is a hustler’s song and most importantly a dance song. Tora Mari (get money) rise up and stop complaining and make things happen. If you don't noone will make this happen for you. Its time we make things happen.”

With a unique African beat and hiphop twist the song highlights the hardwork the artist embodies in his daily life. Aiming to make sure this innovation in business does not only stop with him he also teaches music in schools since finishing the study of Ethnomusicology.

“It’s good to finally say that our music has reached another level in terms of quality and the producers are all Zimbabweans for that matter even music videos are now on the same level with those world over. My only worry is the income. Musicians must be able to live off music royalties, shows and endorsements just to name a few. We need people to invest more in our arts. I wish the government sees how music can push Zimbabwe in terms of Tourism. Look at Jamaica, they tried it and it worked.”

Ready to hear more, you can find him at KayGee40music.co.zwand if you didnt know the number 40 represents completeness!

Being Of The Sun

For those who didn’t know her Rae was this amazing poet, with astounding talent and this gift with words that left you filled with awe every single time, for those that knew her Rae was crazy! She was this experience, like you didn’t just talk to Rae, you experienced all the drama and the extra ness and like each time you were about to see her, you had to brace yourself because you never knew how it would end.




Me and Rae had perhaps the most complicated relationship and friendship of all time in that it came with so many ups and downs and times when we couldn’t see eye to eye and at times couldn’t even stand being in the same space but still somehow remained friends despite it all.

And it’s crazy how the very last time we hung out, she called it love, she said she saw love in the lights and the way the sky shone into my blue hair and nothing was more true than the fact that we were pieces of each other, we are all pieces of each other and we leave these little pieces of each other every single time we interact and even in all the fights, (about boys) and all the tears we shed over the growing pains of being an African woman we were these little pieces just growing together.



When we lost her, and I say we because getting that news was like seeing this fading, pulsating film where everyone had something to say and everyone spoke of her like she was their own, it was like feeling the world stop, like everything within me was fighting against this news because it couldn’t be true, she wasn’t the sort of person to just disappear, she loved the attention and you would hear people who would speak of her, like she was ‘the nicest person I’ve ever met,’ and she wasn’t, she was mean as hell and in every word that I heard from people all I could remember was how sad she was, and how lonely she felt every single day, so lonely that she continued to find solace in the arms of a man that she knew could never love her and that, that was the most painful part of watching her loss.

‘It’s so sad how so many women are taking Xanax and sipping on Chardonnay and are numbing themselves just enough to survive in the way they’ve been told should make them happy but are miserable inside.’ Jaden

See we sat down at the beginning of this year and we set out to conquer the world and we had all these big plans of what we were gonna do and we shared the common belief of being a voice for the women in our generation and at every turn life kept throwing these curve balls. She told me that after she almost died, the first time she was no longer afraid of living her life, that more than ever she was just going to let herself shine because she no longer had anything to lose but even at Hifa as we celebrated, she sat down and drank down her tears because she had still never felt love from the people who called themselves her own and she didn’t feel love from the strangers who only knew how to clap their hands when she spoke, because see I would never have dared call her my best friend because when I look back now we were these crumbled pieces of a complete poem that were only discovering how to live within ourselves and could not discover how live within anyone else.

And when we talk of legacy’s and we talk of how Rae should be remembered I think the one thing I can truly share with all the people that we knew, that knew and loved her is to begin to live! Not on social media and not for the cameras but truly stop long enough to see each other, stop this quest of chasing bottles only to numb the pain of being alive and to survive until the next dose can come but truly live and start to enjoy these moments because this is all we get and this is all we have, tomorrow may never come and for her it didn’t.

She wanted to be surrounded by people but so often we’ve only truly been around each other when we talk about where to get the next $ to go to the next function so we can drink just one more time and smoke just one more grade that has to be better than the last one.

She wanted to change the world and to be an activist of what truly mattered, to speak of drugs and speak of abuse and speak of the pain we all hide behind these thin veiled masks we are so happy to carry around because then we never have to ask each other how we are doing, we never have to speak about the pain we feel at home, if we’ve even had a meal that day, if our parents love us, if that guy who was talking to you took things a little bit too far. We are the generation who speak about having voices and having all these platforms to share them but we are also the generation that’s scared of our emotions so much so we are only too happy to pretend that we have none!

See Rae was from the sun and she was a child of the planet yellow but so often than not she laid her head in the darkness seeping tears of sorrow, drown from the shallow pits of grey.

If we are to live in her memory then we have to truly embrace the sun and all it’s light and for the first time, talk to each other and love, for we can’t only lay love upon the dying flowers of our tomb.



As for the one from the sun

May she sleep with the angels as I’m sure she’ll teach them a thing or two

Live life

If you’re constantly worrying and stressing about something because you’re scared that is you don’t do it, you’ll regret then do it, sometimes you learn how to swim by being thrown in the deep end and that’s life, you can never gain anything that’s worth it if you’re not willing to risk it all in the first place, free your mind and just live your life!

Love

Words from my 12 year old self.

LOVE

1 Word, 4 Letters, 2 Syllables, 1 Meaning

It’s not always romantic
It doesn’t ultimately make the world go round
It doesn’t necessarily last forever
But it still controls every aspect of our lives.
Even as a child we strive for attention
Yearn for someone to somehow tell you how much you mean to them
We grow up hoping someday someone is going to see past our mistakes
Past our lies and past the pain

We keeping running and running hoping to one day stumble upon our own version of a fairy-tale
But is love truly a fairy-tale or is it the simple need of being wanted
The feeling of wanting to belong
We’ve made seem impossible to ever attain
When love is all around us
Our family, our friends
That one teacher who made a difference in our lives
That stranger who was there when you cried
Who made it all seem better for just one second

And then there’s that fairy-tale kind of love
You know the one that makes your heart stop beating
Where your entire world becomes interlinked with that one person, and life itself seems to be centered around them.
But this kind of love is not completely a fairy-tale, it’s short of being perfect, and is devoid of a future only focused on today.
They say love is blind, but love is all-seeing, just n0t completely believing
It forces you to open up without any hope of letting go

We chase it for so long, we forget about what to do when we finally find it
We soon find out that even when it seems to be within our grasp, it still seems far away
That even when you’ve completely given your heart, it’s not a guarantee of forever
That every step we rake does not necessarily get any easier
And every moment in itself isn’t perfect.
Love takes each moment and turns It into eternity
It takes each tear and turns it into a smile

But it also presents life in a way that you have never viewed it
Leaves you wanting to run even when you think you’ve finally caught it
Love is that emotion that can completely consume you and yet leave you still wanting
Gives you understanding yet your left feeling confused
Love is what I feel for the world, for people, for friends, for family
Love is that one feeling that keeps me holding on even when I feel like I can’t take just one more breath

Love is what we are chasing
Love is what we’ve found
Love is what we don’t understand
But we can’t run away from
Love to me is simply you.

The Voices Behind Music Part 3

“The world has been taught to be scared of him, but the reality is that he is scared of the world because he has none of the tools necessary to cope with it.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

Ever heard the term hip-hop hates women, ignored are the effects that music has on the men in our society. Music has sold us the ideology that emotions make us weak, that strength can only be seen through violence or control and never through openness. We chase away the reality of the pressure the media has put on our men. The pressures we as a society have put on them to fit into a box populated by trends but is that the reality we want to keep introducing to the minds of the young men everywhere? A reality where they are forced to be afraid to ask for help, to speak out about what hurts them, to step out of the shame and bridge the gap between fighting to survive it all alone and surviving the world together.

The age adjusted Death Rate is 18.35 per 100,000 of population ranks; making Zimbabwe #20 in the world. The rate of suicide in Zimbabwe in recent months has been steadily going up, an increase experts say might be a reflection of economic hardships and the growing problem of domestic violence.’
While most cases of suicides among women are tied to domestic problems with infidelity being at the top, the increase in suicides by men has been heightened by economic strain and several other social triggers.

The increase in the number of suicides in Zimbabwe shows that economic problems affect more than people’s wallets. It is increasingly becoming an issue that is triggering a lot of psychological problems leading to violence and suicides.
Although police could not give an accurate figure on people committing suicide saying the problem was not criminal, the chief police spokesperson, Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said there has been an increase in the number of people who are committing suicide.

It is also estimated that 60% of the youth are on illicit drugs in Zimbabwe. The Vocie of America (VOA) Africa, in 2015 estimated the unofficial number of addicts in Zimbabwe to be between a million and 1.2 million countrywide. There are a number of reasons that are leading to an increase in the uptake of drugs among the youths. peer pressure, rigorous training and stress from high unemployment or broken families, emotional and physical abuse are some of the common drivers of drug abuse but is our music contributing to this country-wide phenomenon.

Preaching that it is cool to be black but when did the epitome of black hood and black man become drug use and abuse.



Joyner Lucas in his song, I’m not racist talks about the black man stereotype that we have all bought into. With lyrics like, ‘Screamin' "Black Lives Matter" All the black guys rather be deadbeats than pay your bills’ and ‘You motherfuckas needa get your damn priorities straight, Wait, it's like you're proud to be fake. But you lazy as fuck and you'd rather sell drugs, Than get a job and be straight, and then you turn around and complain, About the poverty rate? Fuck outta my face!’

He shows a point of view that many of us are afraid to own up to or admit to ourselves for we have grown comfortable in our plight, comfortable in an image that was never our own.



Karma in the Htown-blues cypher ft Terry Shan and Griffin talks about being the dreamers, the underachievers and talks about the hate breed by the media with lyrics like, ‘while we over here thinking they hate us, they over thinking that we hate them’ whilst Terry Shan talks about emotional madness being his gateway drug and Griffin rapping in his native tongue talks about everytime that we build there will always be people who will come to destroy.

This song speaks of our struggle but how long will we let our image be tarnished and controlled by messages that are only seeking to destroy us.
The above research only just hints at the growing problem that these social issues present to our country and the generation that is fighting to prevail despite them and changes have to be made. It is time that we stop standing silent and we take a step forward providing the people with a voice and proving to the country and the world that we are more than just a generation of thugs.

If you missed the voices behind music part 1 find it here

The voices behind music part 2

What are some of the other songs that you know that speak of this struggle?

And what’s your take on the new generation, struggling or lazy? And what do you think can be done to build our nation and make the dream a reality?

Send your music links via email if you believe that you have a unique voice that deserves to be heard and stand a chance to be featured: a.marufu52@gmail.com

“People always lecture the poor: “Take responsibility for yourself! Make something of yourself!” But with what raw materials are the poor to make something of themselves?”

“The first thing I learned about having money was that it gives you choices. People don’t want to be rich. They want to be able to choose. The richer you are, the more choices you have. That is the freedom of money.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

“We live in a world where we don’t see the ramifications of what we do to others because we don’t live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one another’s pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“We live in a world where we don’t see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we don’t live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one another’s pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“We live in a world where we don’t see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we don’t live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one another’s pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to. “What if…” “If only…” “I wonder what would have…” You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?" the boy asked. "Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you will find your treasure.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist