Oliver Mtukudzi’s advice for young people chasing their dreams
When I am asked what advice I can give to youths chasing their dreams or goals I do not restrict myself to the guidance that I offer them. When I advise youths, I seek also to counsel parents because they turn the goals of their children into pipedreams when they want to impose talent on their children. Yet only God gives talent and God takes it away. That is how I view life.
My first advice to youths chasing their dreams is to build the very difficult but achievable culture of self-discipline. Have respect for yourself first then everyone else will respect you. How you carry yourself amongst other people, how you engage others and your humility defines a well rounded youth in the context of self-discipline.
No one is born a squeaky-clean character. Self-discipline is a process that is cultivated or is inculcated. Our environs at family level, the parents, the peers, the school and social environment all have immense influence and bearing on discipline and parents are central in ensuring that children are not only raised to fear evil but to love, to learn restraint and to tolerate others who may have different views to life. Read more
Blessing’s HIFA Diary - Day 4, Bedridden spirit, poetry & ZESA
30 April Friday
Lion Lager day
“Life is just a shelter for the soul.” – Phillippa Yaa de Villiers - poet (HIFA 2010)
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Today my body came to HIFA but my spirit stayed in bed. It caught up with me much later on, just before the Hot House Flowers show in the evening but by that time I could only persuade my body to stay only a little bit longer.
My day started off with Only Hope, a play at the Standard Theatre, which ironically enough began with a funeral scene, just like Hamlet did, in the same theatre two days ago. The dirge they sang was exactly the same as in Hamlet, but without the searing quality of the delivery, however, it fitted the scene. Deja-vu? I sat too close to the front and felt far too involved in the whole enterprise. I always prefer to be a little further away so as not to feel too captive an audience. However, there was some really good acting here. Read more
Sam and Owen buried in Harare
Sam Mtukudzi and Owen Chimhare who died in a car crash on Monday morning (15 March 2010), were laid to rest at Warren Hills Cemetery in Harare this afternoon.
Speaking at a service held earlier in the day, Sam’s mother said that she had been robbed of two sons. Her husband, music superstar Oliver Mtukudzi said that Sam and Owen were great children and never gave their parents too many headaches.
Many of those present, including some of the artists that Sam had worked with, broke down intermittently during the service and wept for their friend departed.
Sam Mtukudzi is No More
Sam Mtukudzi (1988-2010)
Sam Mtukudzi is no more. The young music star passed away in the early hours of this morning on his way home in Norton from Harare.
He and his sound engineer Owen Chimhare both died on the spot when their car veered off the road along Bulawayo Road, in the Kuwadzana Extension area.
Happy birthday Tuku!
I can’t remember what year it was. I was at a Tuku concert in the wee hours of the morning.
That infectious Tuku beat was in the air. All around me people were dancing and singing along. The song being performed was all time favourite “Tozeza Baba”.
A group of happy acloholically tipsy women was very enthusiastically chanting their own words to the song.
One of them, a big woman who must have been at least 100kg, suddenly saw someone- a man- she knew, just come into the venue.
She let out an ear piercing scream of joy and bounded across the room to him. He too seemed happy to see her but was not at all prepared for what was about to happen. Read more
Poem dedicated to Oliver Mtukudzi
HURRY, TUKU IN CONCERT!
If you had been with me
You too would have seen Tuku at Yoshi’s.
Premier jazz stylist, giant of Southern Africa,
Tuku has a voice that rouses the dead,
a consciousness that slaps one from
the sleep of forgetfulness.
He lit sparks of memory;
then as we swayed to songs about aging
and not aging, about going away and coming back
(especially coming back),
about stunted love, betrayal, Limpopos of tears,
stories of learning to forget, about forgetting to learn,
we coalesced with the stone soul, the pride of our homeland. Read more
