The ManicaPost
Luke Mafere Entertainment Reporter
UNLIKE disturbing stories that characterise most Zimbabwean musical outfits that quickly fold up or dismantle amid raging fights and disagreements at the death of their founding members, Assegai Crew has remained a beacon of unity.
And if the band’s performance at Club Mandisa recently is anything to go by, then this band still has a lot more to offer to the country’s music scene.
The band since its formation in 1991 continues to scale greater heights despite the death of most members of the group.
Besides maintaining the name and legacy that the founder created, a fit that is rare in the country’s musical circles, the band has also held maintained the original Ragga manyika beat.
Some of the original members who made up the group were Stobart Chidikano, Herbert Kehyara, Silas Makumbe, Totichii Makureya, Brian Nhanhanga, Brian Chiriga, Robert Chigora, and Mike Moyo.
Their well-choreographed stage performance has remained polished if not better than the acts of the original band members and on Friday they kept the revellers on their feet by churning out tracks from the original Assegai Crew band of the 90s to their latest album ‘Tauyahe’.
As an icing to their performance the band also did copyright songs that would leave most Jamaican reggae icons green with envy such as popular rendition of the famous Bob Marley track ‘No Women No Cry’ as well as Busy Signal’s ‘One more night’ just to pick on a few.
“We still have a long way to go and more to give. It is pleasing and comforting that we are being well-received in Mutare which is our home town, cementing the old adage that charity begins at home. We are determined to propel the group to dizzy heights.
It is painful at times to travel the musical journey alone with the original band members gone, but I get a lot of comfort in the young men that I work with now. We work as a team and they are very inspiring, he said.
