Worst, awkward and best moments of 2019 entertainers

By Rosalia David

IT is difficult not to get bogged down by the deluge of bad or weird news about Namibian musicians, but there are those few moments that have been so undeniably overwhelming that they had us stunned for different reasons.

We are talking about local musicians that gave us moments so joyful you wanted to cry and give them a huge hug, but couldn’t because you are a journalist and expected to remain neutral. With that said, here are some of the moments from 2019 we’ll remember, and some we can’t wait to forget.

Namibian music Kwaito star Gazza pulled off a spectacular show in August, drawing a large crowd who joined him to celebrate hitting one million views on YouTube for his hit song ‘Chelete’, which was one of the most successful events in our recent entertainment history.

Apart from that, we definitely can’t hide the fact that Gazza sponsored one of those WTF moments of the year. Remember when he attempted to create employment for the Namibian youth in Dubai and everyone raised eyebrows about the legitimacy of the vacancy and criticised? Well, what happened to those job opportunities though? Disappeared with the wind? Or was he too busy making money from Swapo’s election campaign that he totally forgot he promised people jobs.

Gazza was also involved in a verbal spat, or should we call it social media catfight with NAMAs 2019 award winning artist Exit, which escalated fast and without warning, resulting in Exit posting an old picture of Gazza firmly holding a blunt.

As much as we were looking forward to his response after Exit posted the picture, Gazza turned a blind eye on the entire ‘show’, which is something we could all learn from this legend. Not everything deserves a response, they say.

Perhaps another thing we can applaud Gazza for is him trying to revive sensational singer Tequila’s music career, which has been in ICU for the past few years. But it seems like no amount of makeover and a golden voice can bring her back to the limelight.

But then, I genuinely think that King Tee Dee had the worst year of them all. Although we all heard that all what he does best is drink his water and mind his business, news just in is that he was arrested over the weekend for drunk driving and released after paying an N$8000 fine. Not cool.

From being betrayed by Tanzanian musician Diamond Platnum when he remade his ‘One I love’ song to having an exhausting social media fight with Exit, which we thought at some point was going to lead to violence, the dust had not even settled yet between him and Exit and Young T, who was signed under his Mshasho label, comes out of nowhere accusing him of witchcraft.

But King Tee Dee just laughed it off.

Just when we thought all the drama was over, Air Namibia’s ambassador gets arrested for drunk and driving and putting innocent road users in danger. Really? We wish you nothing but a drama-free 2020.

Although it has been a bumpy year for the King, on the bright side he invested in a new home and pulled off the 28/09/19 and brought a bundle of joy in the world. Oh wait, he also managed to seal a deal with M-Net to document his life in the form of a reality show, surely something everybody is looking forward to.

We cannot say much about the soft-spoken Lady May Africa as she is now known, as she has decided to stay out of trouble after giving her heart to Christ. She is one of the artists who gave us a few wow moments after releasing her first Gospel album and renewing her contract with D-Naff Entertainment.

Her album party was the best place to be, not only because of the tab that was open for journalists, it was just one of those memorable launches where you think twice before leaving in the middle of an ongoing session.

It would be unfair to not give thumbs up to rapper Lioness for keeping her eyes on the ball throughout the year and for blessing us with great sounds and visuals, left, right and centre.

She also put Namibia on the map as part of the Coke Studio Africa project collaborating with international acts, such as Boity and Nazizi, although the South African Hip-Hop Magazine tried to test her patience by leaving her out of an article about the project.

Tate Buti blessed the nation with a new talent show, ‘Visible Talent Namibia’, which has given opportunity to many aspiring artists to showcase their talent. With his team, they kept it going until the finale were the finalists walked away with cash prices.

However, we are still trying to get over the most embarrassing knock out Tate Buti got at the MTC Knockout project.

Despite getting into a minor social media fight resulting to Mushe publically questioning forex trader Michael Amushelelo’s sexuality, he surely has been on the hustle this year. In fact, he is the true definition of a hustler.

With his business mind, he attempted to create a shoe collection, which was honestly extremely unattractive and widely criticised on social media. However, he continued to sell eggs while running his other side businesses without giving a damn about what critics have to say.

He also released a brilliant album this year, titled ‘I’m CotaMushe’, which is apparently selling like hot cakes in the northern parts of Namibia.

Meanwhile Top Cheri walked away with two awards from the 2019 NAMAs and warmed our hearts with a single, titled ‘Johnny’, that got everyone talking. She also bagged a partnership with the Ministry of Health and Social Services. The list goes on, but it would seem that she had the best year amongst them all, she even bought a car in her second year of being a musician for goodness sake!

However, who could forget when she revealed a few snapshots from her ‘I lied’ music video and nearly blew up the internet after posting a picture of herself in a bath tub. The pic went viral and Nam tweeters made memes about it and went on and on about the colour of the water in the bath tub, saying the water was dirty as if dark chemical irritants were poured into it.

Nonetheless she also shared a picture of her wearing a long white dress and the critics were on her case for wearing an un-ironed dress, she somehow always finds herself on the wrong side of the internet, but she remained unshaken and is living her best life.

With those few high and low moments in view, we hope the New Year will bring good fortune and fame to our most deserving artists.