Trends Hair and Nail Lounge had Boity Thulo as the special guest for their official launch and yours truly was in attendance. Where else could I have been, like for real? My love for Boity is unnatural. Financial constraints are the only reason why I don’t abandon my whole life to just stalk her. (It’s not completely off the books yet.) I think it’s pretty cool that she got her big break while playing the Thembinator. (Didn’t know that did ya?) I don’t like to toot my own horn but toot toot!
Then she came again for Davido’s concert and there was heated debate as to why we’d hire Boity to MC over all the other local girls. Support local talent they said. And then I got to thinking, the headlining talent was not local why stop there?
Which Zimbabwean girl has equal star power to Boity?
Understand that a lotta money had to be put in to this gig. Trace was part of it as well. By having Davido, Boity in Zimbabwe, that was Africans at work. That was three countries that were being united in a single concert. I then asked on my Facebook whom they’d rather replace Boity with. No clear answer came out. As we continued to have this conversation names started emerging and all of them were Harare names. I love local talent, lets not get that twisted. But none of them would have made me take a trip all the way from Bulawayo to a Davido concert in Harare. I am being honest. I’ll even be more honest and state that as much as I would have liked to have Bulawayo contenders, they have not built their brands to position themselves for an opportunity of this grandeur.
Who is paying the piper?
The person that has the money also at the same time has final say over who gets hired. If his budget allows for him to hire an international talent then so be it. You don’t even know, maybe they are friends and he got a decent deal. Outchea fighting over opportunities that could have been a favour between friends. I’m not saying that’s what happened just in case people start flooding me with the receipts from the organiser’s lifestyle.
Support all women just not your own
A girl winning from anywhere makes me very happy. A girl getting paid for her time and talent is a win for me. Nicki Minaj once rapped, “You see a chick getting shine you should love it. Cause everytime a door opens for me that means you just got a better opportunity to do you….Cause if Nicki win then all y’all getting meetings.” In my head, iMisred was the top contender for that MC gig but the world is round guys. Earlier this year iMisred had the opportunity to go do for Zambia what Boity did for us. Are we then saying Zambians should’ve also caused a racous and sent our girl home? Silence in the court now they all apologetic.
This was a P.R damage control
This wasn’t just any concert. This was the concert that clouded in doubt and skepticism. Davido had twerked with our hearts previously promising to come and not showing up like a deadbeat dad. We had doubts that he woukd be coming for real this time. They needed to sweeten the deal somehow and the sugar needed to be on levels. Boity is a crowd puller guys. At Trends, the launch was delayed, we sat there all day and it was raining. Other people gave up and went home but not me. You know why? Boity was coming. And boy did she! She was worth the wait. Had a one-on-one conversation with her in the back of the Bently. It made the wait worth it. I had no regrets. Would I have been that resilient for a Zimbabwean girl? Absolutely not! These are facts.
There is room for girls across Zimbabwe to rise up to the challenge of developing a strong, influential powerful brand that will rake in the money from across the world. We are no longer competing on a national level. It’s a global grind now. You mustn’t be hoping to get hired because you are local, get hired based on merit and sheer star power. You’ll charge more and get hired more.
I love and support y’all. Stay winning.
