Mandisa Mabuthoe the winner of the 2011 Slam Poetry Express held at The Mannenberg, Harare, Zimbabwe. For more content about Zimbabwe arts and culture follow us on Twitter @POVOAfrika or go to www.povo.co.za
Timothy Mwaura at the Poetry Express at the Mannenberg speaks about the while in Harare, Zimbabwe during the Shoko Festival 2011
At the Shoko Festival press conference, Comrade Fatso talks about The SHoko Festival at the Alliance Francais in Harare, Zimbabwe
What we do hope to see is not just having Shoko as an event but seeing it as part of process and hoping that 100s, we do have 100s of people passing through especially, youth and from diverse backgrounds from the, from the townships and from the suburbs. On the one hand participating in the workshops, in the conferences but we are also aiming to build up more of a database because for every event we have we will always have contact of what’s going on.
A Bobo lion Babylon won’t give me a visa.
Cause I'm a toi toi teacher prooza partista
Anti capitalista i'm the counter culture.
Rooted in the spirit like a Shona sculpture
Refuse to lose, use, used to propaganda.
X on the ballot so we struggle no longer.
The system keeps on coming on strong.
Uncle Bob, Uncle Sam or another Uncle Tom.
We remain the same - poor and unemployed.
A black president or a female head of state.
Another window dresser sees the working class fate.
The democratic right to choose a new slave master.
The Hip Hop Concert which was held on the saturday night was the highlight event for the festival which featured Tumi and the Volume, Hired Gun and Aura tha Poet was the Host along with Mischif. Aerosol teamed up with Sunniva Berg from Norway. There was a grand freestyle session which had some of Zimbabwe's best come on stage including , Synik, Mischif and other members of the crowd got a chance to rock the mic. We also got to see Zimbabwe's freestyle gorilla, mUnetsi in the flesh!
The press conference was held at the Alliance Francaise and was hosted by Outspoken of Magamba Network. Very few people were in attanedance but they missed out on some very inciteful talks by the panelists. On the panel were two of the headliners for the Shoko Festival which included Akala from UK who gave a discourse about the history of hip hop and Hired Gun from the USA who spoke on violence in music. Comrade Fatso of Magamba Network gave an introduction to Shoko Festival, the desired outcomes of the festival and also answered the question of women in hip hop.
The poetry cafe was also structured differently offering a much bigger stage accommodating more people. It lacked the cosy and intimate setting of the HIVOS Poetry Cafe at the old Gazebo. We only managaed to cover one poetry session which featured ports from Indonesia which included Dorothea Rosa Herliany, Saut Situmorangand and Sylvia Geist from Germany. we were lucky enough to catch Prudence Katomeni Mbofana sing a few tracks. Winner of the the inaugral Shoko Poerty Slam from 2011, Mandisa Mabuthoe from Botswana was also there.
