The Art of Crowd Pulling!
An artist guide to being the best, a case study of Winky D!
Wallace Chirumiko popularly know by his stage name Winky D or Ninja Prezident or simply Gafa is one of Zimbabwe’s best performers. He has been a dancehall artist for over ten years and continues to dominate.
The 34 years old singer is not shy to call himself the best evidenced by his popular lyrics in songs such as Takaipa which is Shona for ‘We are bad’ obviously slang for being the best.
Winky D’s early days as an artist were filled mostly with songs that established him as the best artist in the industry and even controversial songs such as ‘Nhinhi’ and ‘Suit Yezvibhakera’ all of which talk of embracing violence. Something that was popular among dancehall artists and even hip-hop in the days.
It was the era when songs about guns and drugs where doing great even internationally. Locally beefs (not the meat!) where being fueled by the rise of dancehall clashes, such as the then popular cup clash hosted annually. You needed lyrics that showed you could defend your title.
Thats the first lesson you need to take from Winky D’s style. He managed to relate with a lot of ghetto youths at the time by going were everyone was going and dominating there.
It is the game of life, survival of the fittest! If he had chosen to sing about being socially upright (which is most of what he is singing now, more on that later) he wouldn't have made it. Why? Because his audience didn't care about that at the time. If someone wanted to listen to something like that, they usually wouldn't seek for dancehall, these were the days of Sungura, Macheso, Dhewa, Tuku and others catered for that.
There were other dancehall artists who tried this way, but didn't survive the times.
So the problem I see with most artists today is trying to go back to where Winky started from. They instigate artificial beefs (still not the meat!) with fellow chanters to no avail. They try to sing about embracing violence, but still don't win. Disclaimer: some are actually making it this way, proves that there is not one way of making it! But today we are studying Winky D’s style, so sit down 😎
Why do you think the Gafa no longer sings about these staff. Maybe its maturity, but its definitely playing to his side. According to figures from 2012, 77% of Zimbabwe’s population is under 35 years with 36% being 15–34 thats over 4 million! Thats means if Winky D just sings about what he likes its likely over 4 million Zimbabweans also like that.
Today Winky D sings about fighting poverty and his struggles as presented in the song 25. Most people think Winky has a very wise team, more like magicians who advice him and to take very clever strategies, but I would like to differ. Okay maybe he does have advisers, but a market like Zimbabwe’s with almost no statistics about his fans, its almost impossible to actually predict.
Then why is he winning. Because he relates!
That answer is so simple but says a lot. Artists who usually make it in these parts of the world are the ones who express their fans, they are the voice of their fans. Zimbabwe has youthful population and a high unemployment rate, which means most of the people are ambitious. We are living a hard life, but trying to make it, then came Disappear.
Like I said before, there is not one way of making it and so is Winky D’s style. Its not just driven by his lyrics. The best part of all his style’s is proven stage skills, in a nation were artists make most of their money through live performance being so good in the studio and then so bad live, is probably one of the best ways to waste time.
Winky has managed to maintain a consistent stage appeal that always leaves fans voiceless from singing along (mostly shout and screaming) and people talk. If you have a great product and nobody talks about it, what are you doing.
When you have managed to get confidence like that from your fans, its important not to dilute it, and he hasn't!
Its important to note how he manages to do this. According to my independent observation, Winky D uses proven hits to keep the fans connected. Not just fresh hits some may never have heard yet, but he pulls even old songs like Controversy, they maybe too old for the radios, but not for live shows.
Most of the crowd that attend his shows are somewhere between 20–40 years (again independent observation), mostly are above 30. That means they are the same people who busted these tunes back in the days. Again, he is making his fans relate. Connection with the fans is always important. When you are on stage its not about your, but the people down there!
Even he songs are already crafted for live shows. Some songs are just good on radio, but trying to bump to them on live shows is just hard, but take a listen to the hit Disappear and tell me it wasn't crafted with a live show in mind. Gafa Party? Mwendamberi? Twenty-Five? I could go on, but I think you get it. The process doesn't start on the day of rehearsal, no, it starts on the day of composing.
The last style I am going to point out is the way he is dropping songs these days. I have come to realize an artist has a hand in determining the life span of their own songs. It is going to be hard to perform songs fans love when you drop songs like every week. You don't even know which song is a hit in your arsenal.
Winky D has embraced this by dropping one album every year and no single. The album usually has about 8–12 songs. That means the whole year, he drops a maximum of twelve songs. I wish I could stress enough the importance of this.
Dropping a song everyday, or whenever some exciting event happens or trying to be viral is so unprofessional for any serious artist! Why are you doing it? Let your previous songs sink into the people, push the ones you think can do well, if the fans don't respond well, I think its better to go back into the studio and remake the same song until its ripe for a hit.
Young artists think dropping a song everyday is hard work, well its not smart and working smart is better than working hard! Even science prove that the more people hear a song the more it starts to sink in. So if you are dropping a song every week making a song you released last week obsolete before we even had a chance to like it, what are you doing? How will you know which songs to sing on live shows, what if we haven't heard that one? You are just making it hard for yourself.
Conclusion: Music should be taken as a business of its own, a separation of personal life and business is needed. If you really want to be a crowd puller, know your market, relate to your fans, sometimes just sing about what you like and are feeling at the moment (its that easy) and most importantly exploit your strength as much as possible until people talk and until they are confident that you can pull it any time.
Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed this post give it some love and share it. Also check out my other post on DancehallAfrika, HERE.
