Langalakhe Mabena
Zimbabwe music giant Jah Prayzah is ready to release his much anticipated eleventh album and according to his manager Keen Mushapaidze, the project is off the oven and ready to be served.
The album will be released on 9 July and it will be titled Gwara which translates to a path.
Sixteen songs are said to feature on the album which was produced by a number of youthful producers so as to spice it up and bring variety to the collection.
The producers include Rodney Beats, Young DLC, Victor Stot (from Bulawayo), G Singers and Laizer (from South Africa).
Multi-award-winning Military Touch Movement (MTM) signature producer DJ Tamuka is not part of the project.
“The journey towards the creation of this album to becoming a final product has been amazing. It started soon after releasing Jah Prayzah’s last album (Hokoyo) and there was no sleep from that period to now.
“We managed to scout for young talented producers who worked on the 16-track album because we wanted to give them a chance. DJ Tamuka is not part of the production (though he was consulted) because we wanted to bring about diversity to this project,” said Mushapaidze.
Fans have been criticising Jah Prayzah to stick to his Mbira sound (which was later defined as JP sound) because it defines him.
However, Mushapaidze said Gwara was designed to cater for everyone including those who love JP sound and those who are of new age.
“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.
As JP is known for releasing dope visuals, Mushapaidze said they had already started shooting videos for some of the songs, which will be released later after the official launch of the album.
Mhaka is the first teaser of the album and it was released as a snippet a month ago.
