On 22 January 2019 Coca-Cola rewarded 20 listeners and viewers and twelve of the country’s top artists who excelled in the 2018 Radio Zimbabwe Coca-Cola songs and ZBC TV top 50 videos charts
with prizes.
In the radio category, Rev Chivaviro walked away with $2500.00 for coming out first on the Radio Zimbabwe Coca-Cola Top 50 with his song Matishamisa which polled 432 321 votes. Admire Nago
whose song Wandigadza came second after amassing 388 579 votes pocketed $2000.00.
Stealing the limelight at the event was Gweru based female gospel artist, Amai Patai, who broke the record by
becoming the first female artist to be in the top three of the radio charts with a song titled Anokomborera, which scored a massive 387 579 votes. For her effort, Amai Patai got $1500.00.
Just like in 2017, gospel music dominated the Radio Zimbabwe Coca-Cola Top 50.
In the ZBC TV Coke Top 50 videos, popular Zimdancehall singer, Enzo Ishall received $2500 for scooping the pole position with Kanjiva video. Jah Prayzah won himself $2000.00 for coming second with Dzamutsana video while Baba Harare completed the top three video list with his hit ‘The Reason Why’also popularly known as ‘Hat Dzemurara’ which saw him pocketing $1500.00
Speaking at the awards ceremony at a local hotel, Coca-Cola Senior Brand Manager, Vee Chibanda said that they were pleased to contribute to artists’ development.“Artists play a significant role in keeping the society informed, entertained and educated. It is
unfortunate that their work is often taken for granted. We are proud as corporate that we have managed
to keep our support for local artists afloat for decades, despite the economic challenges that we are
facing,” she said
“The Coca-Cola top 50 Radio and TV programmes are meant to reward our local musicians, as well as
provide them with avenues to exhibit their talents. The music awards is one of the many ways in which
The Coca-Cola Company and its bottling partners, namely Delta Beverages and Mutare Bottling
Company ploughs back to the Zimbabwe community.’’
“Outside these programmes, we have also created other platforms for artists such as !Coke Studio and we are also sponsoring the outdoor music event- Unplugged which has been very
helpful in giving upcoming artists a platform to be visible.”
“This year, we included sectorial and genre winners instead of just rewarding the traditional top three
musicians to increase the number of musicians benefiting from the programmes.”
In the radio category, Killer T whose song Hondo was on number 6 and accumulated 354406 votes took the Best Zimdancehall award. Alick Macheso was awarded the best Sungura and Jeys Marabini walked away with the best Radio Zimbabwe Jazz singer for 2018. Mebo hit maker, Obert Chari was named the best upcoming artist while Dr Oliver Mtukudzi completed the radio category list with a
veteran artist, honourary award. All the category and genre winners walked away with $500.00 each.
Whitney Song bird whose video ‘I see’ was on number seven after scoring 11655 votes, received the top female artist’s video award. The award is part of Coca-Cola’s women empowerment initiatives
after realising that male artists were dominating the top 50 awards. She also received $500.00.
Apart from honouring the crème de la crème musicians, lucky viewers and listeners who correctly
predicted the top five charts were also rewarded with various prizes ranging from television sets, radio
sets and mobile phones. A total of 20 fans got prizes for correctly predicting the charts.
This year saw 2 780 correctly predicting the number one song Matishamisa on radio while 289 correctly predicted that Kanjiva video would top the charts on ZBC TV.
