Cal_Vin, Ti Gonz Win Big At Best Zim Hip Hop Awards Yet

Bulawayo’s Cal_Vin and Harare’s Ti Gonz walked away with three gongs each at the fifth Zim Hip Hop Awards in Long Chen’s 1+1 on Thursday.

Cal_Vin walked away with male artist, song and album of the year while Ti Gonz grabbed the collabo, freestyle and people’s choice awards.

It was probably the best awards yet for a couple of reasons. 1+1 was a good choice after the weird venue last year. The stage had better lighting and for half of the show it seemed to run on time. The MCing felt a bit more deliberate and the show had some direction. That is always a good look.

We were impressed by some of the performances particularly the two young ladies, Zizi Azzizzi from Bulawayo and Tiara from Harare, who we have not really seen on the scene.

In the battle between Stunner and Mudiwa, the former won it easily as he was more hip hop than latter.

The few things that they need to do better on are

Keeping the MCing tight. While we did say it had direction we need it to get straight to the point.
Award presenters need scripts. That cringe moment by Tasha when she said ‘it’s not Team Bho’ was crass.
get rid of the fake applause through the speakers. Especially since the sound was not that great, it was not a good look, particularly for some who stood near the speakers and could see very few people were clapping.
The cypher needs to be straightforward… this figuring it out while the crowd is watching is not a good look
The performances went on for too long and we for a moment forgot there were awards.
Close to five hours for that award ceremony. Nah.

The thing is though, that the awards are going in the right direction and we see the genre grabbing a share of the space in the competitive music space in Zimbabwe.

High moment of the night: The chairman’s award to ProBeatz. Hip hop took back its identity.

Low moment of the night: Briss Mbada jumping onto the stage twice to disturb proceedings because he lost out to Cal_Vin for male artist. Dude, you need Kanye money to get away with that. And even Kanye had to apologise.