What is Mbunga Music?
MBUNGA Music‘ is a phrase coined to mean multi-genre music played in the western part of Zambia. Mbunga music has changed and is still changing as the days go by, thanks to the collective hard word of artists, DJs, producers, promoters, bloggers, and the unwavering support of the fans. Just like all artists country-wide, Mbunga artists try their level best to bring out awesome content to maintain and grow a fan base. Given the lack of opportunities and little exposure that we have in Zambia, one has really to be proud of the results that are coming up from these artists.
Some of the notable improvements that Westside Music Blog has brought in Mbunga Music:
1) Management – it has finally dawned on many Mbunga artists that for a career to fully flourish, intact and able management should be put in place. This has bettered Mbunga music so much because management chooses the best features and negotiates fair prices for shows
2) Sticking to Local Language– This is the best decision Mbunga musicians have made. Most parts of Zambia are ignorant of our culture and languages in Western province. So when a song is a banger and everyone is giving to it.. curiosity will hit the new listeners and will try to search for more songs from such a singer.
3) Uploading of Music Online Media Platforms – Back in the day we used to listen to Simbande Mbande, Ba Tuyana, Skwiz, and many other legendary musicians. Today we are missing their music..why? Because the music wasn’t digitized, it got lost as our music system became digitized. Today we are proud to search for any Mbunga song on the internet because artists have grasped the importance of uploading music on the internet.
4) Major Features – in Zambia, Mbunga Music is not as much established as these other genres of music. So we are seeing artists pushing themselves up the ladder by securing big features with some notable names in the Zambian music industry like Petersen, Slap Dee, Daev, Stevo, T-sean, and others. In some cases, some are even scoring international collaborations from countries like Nigeria, Namibia, Angola, and other countries…this does not only market the artists individually but it also puts Mbunga music on the map.
5) Quality Interviews – These days we are seeing our artists more and more on television, radios, and newspapers, getting the best exposure that all artists need.
6) Sound Improvement– This is to the DJs and producers who invest in the right equipment and polish of the cracks in a song…the minds behind the right beats and the right microphones..hats off you’re doing a great thing to the sounds
7) Quality Videos– Last year and this year we have been graced by good music videos from our Mbunga artists, some of them scoring major numbers on Youtube and several plays on many T.V stations in the country. Eg. Mahongo and Ngoma by Kuza, No Woman No Cry, and Designer by Rich Kid Barotse just to mention a few.
8) Fan Engagement – artists have created pages on Facebook and other social media platforms where they engage with fans frequently..this helps to strengthen the support system as followers will invite more followers
9) Heated Competition– Mbunga artists have recently created a heated competition environment, which pushes everyone to perfect their art more..this also applies to DJ’s, Cover Designers, Producers, and many more.
10) Promoting Music- Most of the viral songs from Mbunga comes from promoted music. When you pay for your song to be promoted, a blogger will squeeze it in any gap that he can get so as to gain an audience, he will advertise it as much as possible and so the downloads get more and more numbers. Everyone can agree that any musician can make great music, but what matters is, will it reach the right audience. That’s how bloggers and blogs come in and in the Western province, we have a lot of mushrooming blogs and established blogs for both music and other stuff but a blog that has come and seems to dominate the market now is Westside Music Blog.
Westside Music Blog was originally created in 2018 and was launched in late 2019… With songs like Luvale Gel by Cox, Rap Moses by Mumble Jumble, Za Bupilo Bwaka by Rich Kid Barotse, and many other songs premiered on the site. Westside Music Blog was then updated and improved early in 2020 and its services have been getting better and better. Westside now boasts of more than 10,000 engagements and activities a day, thanks to Maslang, the mind behind such hard work. So anyone can’t talk about Mbunga Music improvement without marrying it to westside music blog. The progress may be slow but Mbunga Music is headed in the right direction and we will surely get there