'Downloading is killing our music'

Top-flight Zimbabwean-born musician Lloyd Muradzihwa has come out with guns blazing, blaming local artists for a lack of creativity and labelling them as copycats.

Muradzihwa, who is known as the Mysterious Lloyd in music circles and who has played and composed music for many local big names, is accusing local artists of stealing music through downloading. He said the trend was fast killing music and there was no longer creativity in the music industry.

“Back in my home country, artists are very serious about producing original music. That is what is making our music grow and acceptable even in overseas countries - its orinality. Here it is a different story altogether, where most artists have resorted to downloading instrumentals from overseas artists. This is fast killing music and bringing local Tshivenda music into disrepute,” he added.

He said he had kept quiet for far too long, but he was now worried that even some of his music was being stolen and used by local artists without his approval. “I have been here for quite some time. I have released good music which I took to local radio stations, but they are not playing the music. I am just surprised to hear some of my music being played under other people’s names, which makes me bitter because they do not have my permission to do so,” he said.

He said there were some creative artists who were helping in the development of local music.

“My music is original. I compose my music, but there are some guys who just wait for the right time and steal other people’s music and pretend it's theirs. Even engineers are losing quite a lot of money as artists just come with instrumentals ready and only pay for studio time to do the vocals."

Bamba, one of the most popular local musicians, confirmed that downloading is the norm in the music industry. “There are protocols to be followed when downloading instrumentals that belong to other artists, but we do not encourage it as it decreases one's creativity,” he said.

Entertainment - Date: 29 August 2014

Elmon Tshikhudo

Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019.

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