This and That

Warnings we take for granted

Some pieces of art seem so good to the ear or the eye only, getting treated as just another song, play, poem or wood carving.

Sometimes good art becomes so familiar that we start to love it more for its aesthetics, not its deep philosophies.

It is there and then we start to miss the beauty of it all and the results could be disastrous to our careers or physical being.

Take, for example, the Black Missionaries’ Mlomo:

Amayi wanga anandiuza/ Mwana wanga, ukadzakula/ Ukayenda udzasiye phazi/ Koma ukadzasiya mlomo/ Mlomo udzakupeza…

Well, it is normal for one to live next to a solution for decades, but never recognise it as so until time calls for that recognition.

Look at our politicians—they are always falling into the same trenches their predecessors broke legs in, and when you tell them that tax payers are tired of sponsoring their mischief, they froth like agitated canines, telling us ’samadya pakhomo pa amathu.’  

The guilty need no accuser and more so in politics where some people are so allergic to criticism.

In their rush, they feel they sit so high up in society we can no longer reprimand them for their bad mouths. Shame!

The truth of the matter is that these people feed from amathu’s palms.  As taxpayers and their employers, we have a say on how they behave or spend the money they fish from our holed pockets.

For years, politicians dizzy on the comfort of the podium have said to us things they shouldn’t be saying at all.

I praise arts for tirelessly helping politicians off that road. It’s, therefore, a shame that some artists too never take criticism kindly.

When such artists see a review of their work, they throw tantrums, crying all over social media and even composing songs that look down on reviewers.

Urban artists are in the forefront. But criticism is good—-it builds the artist, not breaking them.

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