Prudence Katomeni & Hope for Africa Day

This Africa Day, PRUDENCE KATOMENI-MBOFANA and HOPE MASIKE, two of Zimbabwe’s most delightful daughters of music, join together in a lively double-bill at Book Café on Friday 25 May at 8pm, to celebrate with the rest of the continent some of its most colourful music over the ages, with a modern twist, fresh originals and strong mbira-jazz crossovers from present-day Zimbabwe.

Prudence has been delighting Zimbabweans since her young days, first as a young star on the film screen, and evolving over time into a first-rate jazz singer and songwriter.  Honed by her jazz studies at the Zimbabwe College of Music a few years ago, Prudence has a deep understanding of jazz theory, which is fired by her natural gift, perfect pitch, and powerful vocal abilities.  Topped with the ‘art of entertainment’, Prudence always delivers a great performance featuring new originals from the 2011 CD ‘Prudence’, and some all-time old favourites.

Hope Masike is back from travelling in the world, and brings with her a fresh sound with influences from all over, in which she is creating exciting musical experiments, backed by her group KAKUWE, formed by Hope from her days in the ZCM jazz programme.  Featured regularly at the Book Café in the last four years, Hope’s career has taken off strongly and fans have been able to track her swift progress through her website www.hopemasike.com.  Hope released her second CD ‘Hope, Love and Chocolate’ this year, hitting the shelves now.

Both artists performed at the recent International Jazz Day event at Book Café, which is now being staged more regularly, by popular demand, and were also featured at HIFA at the beginning of May where they reached an even wider audience.

Both artists also participate in the FLAME programme (Female Literary, Arts & Music Enterprise) by Zimbabwean arts development organisation Pamberi Trust, attending and facilitating various workshops, staging promotional events, and encouraging younger women artists at the Sistaz Open Mic – a platform for exposure for women artists.

Prudence and Hope are the new faces of African jazz and world-music in the world today, predicted by this writer to rise up to international status along with the likes of older African sisters Miriam Makeba, Dorothy Masuka.  They have already reached audiences in the region and Europe for some years, and this show is a rare opportunity to catch them on the same stage before they bustle on in their individual careers.