Jah Prayzah Gwara album: A timeless bomb

Langalakhe Mabena

He traced his roots on this particular offering, fusing his Mbira neHosho trademark sound with a modern urban feel and that has made Jah Prayzah even more undisputed in the Zimbabwean music scene.

Birthdays are worth celebrating and a special present to one’s self. The day you were begotten is one of the most important, it’s sacred, it gives you purpose for the years ahead of you.

Jah Prayzah, decided to spoil himself by releasing Gwara, the eleventh album under his name, as his personal present.

He shared it with friends on 4 July, the day he was born.

The offering boasts of 16 solid tracks with no feature on it, something that Jah Prayzah has never done.

“This project is special to him, it’s his birthday present. Going solo entirely without a feature on Gwara was a way of celebrating his 34th birthday in style,” Jah Prayzah’s manager Keen Mushapaidze told B-Metro showbiz.

Jah Prayzah

Many have criticised “The Long Man” as JP is fondly known, for deserting his original sound especially on his previous album Hokoyo with many saying he was heading for disaster in trying hard to fit in on the world music market.

Many of his followers advised him to stick to his original JP sound as it was believed the Zimbabwean music heritage was vested in that type of his musical prowess.

There are corrections that the Mudhara Achauya hitmaker wrote with Gwara.

Songs such as Mhaka, Gwara, Chimwe NeChimwe, Bvumbamirai and Nyeredzi are good examples of tracks on the album that reveal Jah Prayzah kissed and made up with the Mbira neHosho on Gwara.

Surprisingly, Military Touch Movement trademark producer DJ Tamuka is not part of the production, though he was consulted here and there.

Gwara is supposed to connect the new age generation with their ancestral roots through the creation and composition of traditional Zimbabwean music, and it’s the reason why Jah Prayzah decided to work with youthful producers.

Rodney Beats, Young DLC, Victor Stot (from Bulawayo), G Singers and Laizer (from South Africa) are the youthful producers who did justice on instrumentation and production of Gwara album.

This is also a strategy that is meant to redesign JP as a global brand.

“This project is designed to satisfy every JP fan from all walks of life. Times are evolving and JP is now a global brand so we saw that there was a need for us to balance all the needs of his fans.

“That also explains why we opted to conscript young producers to this ground breaking project so as to have a popular culture of music on the album. In all, JP sound is there on the project,” said Mushapaidze.

Zimbabwe and other parts of the world are experiencing an inevitable third wave of the disastrous Covid-19 but Jah Prayzah is one man who cannot have his spirits dampened by the scourge- Gwara is a testimony.

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