The Zimbabwean story is incomplete without mention of the diaspora community, the proverbial travelling souls.
These are millions of Zimbabweans stationed in other countries, for one reason or the other.
One endearing thing among those who are based in foreign lands, they still find time to connect with what happens back home.
Same can be said about content creators.
To them, it is an object of love, interconnectivity with a place that birthed them.
Others simply cannot afford to ignore the stories from home even if they tried.
As a result, a significant percentage of Zimbabwean content is created by citizens who are based in different countries.
One such creative is comedian King Kandoro, of Madhorofiya FM and Madhorofiya Republik.
Madhorofiya FM is an online radio station which syndicates programmes from Zimbabweans based in different parts of the world.
Besides curating the platform, Kandoro also releases periodic humour skits in his work of comedy, as he is readying to release a new show titled Properganda with King Kandoro.
We spoke to him on his perspective on being based in a foreign land, and creating for the Zimbabwean audience.
He said to him, the disconnect is yet to be felt more as he has been in the United Kingdom for just over a year.
However, creating from 12 000 kilometres away has had its own lessons.
“The biggest challenge that comes with creating content when you are not on the ground is lack of context. Some of the things you may be focusing on might not have the agency that you think they have, or they are not truly representative of people`s feelings on the ground,” said King Kandoro.
As a way of ensuring that he remains within nuance, he has been collaborating with Zimbabwean based creatives to maintain the connection.
“That is why it is very important to have liaisons or people that can help you navigate certain subject matters, especially if we are talking about things like satire and current affairs. You run the risk of sensationalizing things, adding to fake news. It is very difficult but it is made easier by technology, making use of things like zoom which closed the distance and the gap that exists because of the distance,” added King Kandoro.
The social capital he had accumulated during his active time in the Zimbabwean creative sector has assisted him to get reliable collaborators whenever he has something he needs from someone on the ‘ground.’
His approach in keeping in sync with developments is similar to that of musician Edith WeUtonga who is based in the UK.
WeUtonga – who recently became the first black woman to be appointed Vice President of the International Federation of Musicians – says most of the content she consumes herself is from Zimbabwe.
“I listen to a lot of local music to begin with, and that in the last year in lockdown has also made me appreciate more of our local sounds as never before. I have gone back to music my parents listened to, my grandparents all in a quest to remain connected. As an artist, for your sanity and relevance, one needs to consistently work with producers who understand our sound, and so that favours those at home more than those abroad,” WeUtonga said.
For her, Covid-19 and the resultant lockdowns have had a silver lining in that they plunged the whole world into the realm of virtual work.
“Working with the musicians at home too helps me keep connected. Of course have had to work with various great musicians who are not Zimbabwean, but because I insist on having the majority of the make-up of my band being Zimbabwean, it keeps me rooted to the Zim sound.
The lockdown has also forced us into virtual working and this has fortunately birthed many more opportunities to always be connected,” she said.
Animator and Blogger Michael Mupotaringa, whose Tsano comic jokes and cartoon skits have in some instances gone viral, said have created content from Zimbabwe and South Africa, where he is now based; he has had to unlearn a few things.
“Creating far from home has given me new experiences to reflect on. I feel that I once misjudged people who had migrated on their perspectives, because I now go through what I had no idea was forming their views,” he said.
More exposure has cured him of prejudices he used to hold against foreign based creators when he was in Zimbabwe.
“It is eye opening. Knowing my previous responses to diasporans whilst I was resident in Zimbabwe also informs me of the perspective that one may have when they are still in Zimbabwe. As a self enrolled student of emotional intelligence and psychology I thus do not take it to heart when some of my takes on things are rubbish,” Mupotaringa said.
He urges content creators to seek to change their environments regularly to ensure that they keep the dynamism in their views and approaches.
“It is true that exposure broadens consciousness of the world. In other instances you realize that the things that were holding you back were not necessarily economics and politics but yourself and so forth.
However, that juxtaposition is a necessary as it is to first test other computer monitors on a computer if the primary one is not showing any signal. If all of them are giving similar results it’s probably in the CPU,” he said.
Content creation has been made easy by digital platforms which have compressed the space and time involved in communication.
The reality of a global village has materialized in this lifetime, allowing those who would ordinarily be silenced by distance, adding their voice to discourses in their country of birth.
Some have turned into formidable movements like Madhorofiya Fm, which has become a citadel of intersectionality of young and middle aged Zimbabweans from different parts of the world.