But Wait, Who Runs what? Lessons We learnt from We Run It

We would go on to give a review of the song but I guess you can always ask Synik to do that for you. As we watched social media turn into a hashtag, kind words, unkind words, war chants and re-tweets, we decided to only talk about things that we could all learn from the current situation (which can change as we type, so gotta get this out quick). Back to school

Lesson 1: We Run It is NOT about ONE RAPPER!!

It’s a like MMT’s “Wake Up” with no names. Guys really...Don't you get it! LISTEN TO THE SONG.. Geez! The “new guy /…2 by 4” line is just one line. And that line, for all we know, might not even be talking about the rapper you are thinking about. A lot of really erhm.. feelings were expressed in that song, chief of all, being looked down upon, being slept on, not being acknowledged and simple social commentary about his journey and things that have been happening, but you know what, you might not understand it and its why we have lesson 2.

Lesson 2: Throw “subliminals” and let the crowd drive the war

Shots fired? we don’t quite think so, buy maybe we are being naïve. We listened to the song, again and again and again, no name was mentioned (except Beefy Harrison), but they did mention the alleged victims neighborhood, which trigger happy supporters could take as “shot fired” because, logically speaking, if as person says that “your neighborhood” knows “we run it”, its really up to you to feel disrespected or to take it as childish talk. In response to Kendrick Lamars assertion that he was the king of New York, P Diddy didn’t hit back with a diss track, or anything hectic really, he just gingerly poked fun at it. BUT.. did you see how peoples reaction immediately made it look like Junior Brown had gone “Ether” on Calvin? People want blood, people want war.. sometimes rappers just want to express themselves..but what if..

Lesson  3 : that could have been the plan all along.. MARKET IT!

What if, just what if, the expected reaction was exactly what Junior Brown and his team wanted and they got it? Smart thinking. Retweets are the fuel of group think! Get three people with a large following on social media, a well produced song, clever timing…and you can control the masses. Love it or hate it, one needs to respect the promotional campaign for We Run It. Think about it, we are still talking about it now right? Did you know that Marcques and Mile dropped a very GOOD album? ..YEAH.. Its called Lost In Translation!, we recommend the songs  Easy, KFC Drive By and  Rufaro. Point is, the Breezy team was clever and more resourceful enough to get all the attention to THEM.  What we are more impressed by is what Junior Brown and his team did before and after the drop, not the fact that they actually dropped it and what made it better was…

Lesson 4 : “We Run It” is a good song

Happy to say that it was a good jam, everything in there.. guitars, beat, effects.. DOPE DOPE..SUPER DOPE.. therefore

Lesson 5 : Never let ANYONE tell you that a market for Hip Hop doesn’t exist

Some people say that Zim Hip Hop is a dying genre because it has a small following. We believe that people only think that its only good Hip Hop if so and so releases it. That’s why we aren’t afraid to call out the crowds favorite on a bad song, even if the crowd is a little too timid to admit it. That’s why we don’t blog some people music . However, we  cant blame the consumer. To feed off the Zim Hip Hop market, you have to work twice as hard and three times smarter than a dance hall and sungura artiste put together. We exist, we are the market, we are just hard to please

Lesson 6: Lets push forward vs Lets beef and feed our egos?

Some people have expressed the imagined altercation as anti progressive because well, no real constructive industry gets built around beefing. Some people think that competition at least, gets people talking and Hip Hop becomes part of the conversation again. We just want good music and people to live off of it. So whichever way this goes and a big shout out to Calvin for making it clear that this isn’t a Ndebele vs Shona or Bulawayo vs Harare thing, we really just want artistes making music again.

there is lots more we could say, but we may just be jumping the gun...so for today

School is over kids.. 

heres your homework

Check out the lyric Video to "We Run It" here

@pushzw

Valentines Season RnB: Mik & Mile - Like Oooh [NEW VIDEO!!]

2015 has started on a very hectic tip, artists have been churning videos out non - stop. so much so, we are having a hard time keeping up. The song Like Ooh is one we got to hear some time last year and we couldn't resist but write an article on the young man Mik when we found out it was part of his Ep titled The Listen Ep; mostly produced by Team Rehab Anonzi Xndr and Delani Makhalima. Like Ooh was produce by Anonzi Xndr.

Before we go any further, if you haven't heard this song and you think there is no young RnB in Zimbabwe, you have clearly been looking in the wrong places. a sound like this one is truly refreshing in a country where good singers either end up in urban grooves or are forced to go the Jazz path so that they are more "marketable" as brands. these young boys have come out giving us a sound that is pure RnB and wow, they do it quite well. these two are very talented, great voices that make you wonder where they were when we had to listen to Pax Afro and Slice? why the people who go to Start Brite think they can sing when there is talent like this? and who on earth is deciding what gets played at radio stations if they are not playing this?

Our advice from here on is two pronged: ladies, don't watch this with your man or he will catch you dreamily looking at these two boys with their "I-can-dance-but-I-wont-all-out-dance" moves; guys, download the song for her (valentines package), watch the video and learns some moves on swooping in on those girls.

The video was shot in good quality and was well scripted; the song is appreciative of a girl, and how some girls just get you feeling some typa way. We're glad Mik and Mile didn't cramp the video with an attempt at putting a long winding story-line into it. you can tell they put time into and it wasn't a rushed project with the different shots in it. We were at a 50-50 split on deciding on the indoor shots but they were quite nice; the natural feel of the quality then brings a certain realism to the shots and you can appreciate the cuteness of time spent fooling around with your girl indoors, makes you forget that its acting. The garden scenes during the Mile verse proved for an environment fitting of the lyrics and what he was saying to the girl.

Now as PUSHzw we are dedicating this small paragraph to the beautiful ladies in the video. That is all.

Love songs are a difficult area to write for and do videos for because its very difficult to escape "cheesy", we would like to applaud these gentlemen for the fine effort and not at any point making us feel like it was cheesy. If it had been another NSSA house shot video ka! Its really nice to be able to see local videos that we aren't embarrassed to share with our snobby friends who think local is always hideous!

Okay you can watch the Video below and tell us what you think

As usual its us, your favorite Know-it-all bloggers, please remember to

Push.Ur.Sound.Hard [P.U.S.H]

...and follow us on twitter @pushzw and like our Facebook Page PUSHzw(notice how we didnt say 'please'?)

Mik - @hypemik

Mile - @263Mile 

MARIA MARIA!! JUNIOR BROWNS MARIA

The year 2014 has been characteristic of a lot of things which includes the silence of Junior Brown. The last bit of that statement changed with a tweet. This weekend after the songs debut on a local station, the MaDrinks rapper announced that anyone who wanted his newest release “Maria” would have to add “atenno” on his Whatsapp list and request to get the song. We did as the rapper ordered and in a jiff, we were added in a group, had the song shared to us and pressed play!

Utterly scary, pure mastery and very Hip Hop.

We really want to go into the deciphering of the lyrics, about how, the almost 7 minute song which has skit before and during, a feature from Gze and adlibs by who we think is Babashupi is a mix of the relationship between the artist and money (Maria), the Maria being the pseudo scary voice in the beginning (who is male and reminds us of listening to DMX’s trilogy Damien when he had a conversation with the mystical character) who seems to be the overbearing influence over the rappers life and how it all makes sense that money would make put you in a position where hood-rats would want your attention… WE COULD GO ON AND ON ALL DAY!

One can’t ignore the could be blasphemous undertone in the last verse, (see why we think it’s scary!), one cant ignore the truth in the message in the song, one cant ignore Gze’s verse which we loved still.

We will not be the ones to kill the sharing by placing a link or anything, get on twitter and get the song from atenno! Till then, we shall be singing the below

“Maria Maria Mariaaaaa, Honayi zvandakuitwa ne Mari iya”

@pushzw