God, Please Not Sauro - Zim's King of Dancehall Dedication

When we established this platform, one of our supportive 'hommies' made a special request that we pay our respects to the late chanter - Soul Jah Love. I knew it was going to be a task for me but see how it happens, a friend decided to celebrate our work with his gifted pen. It happens naturally that the energy around you (us) is usually what you get. Here is the blessing we received from Lennon Mudzengerere

I struggle to write obituaries. The grief and the sheer shock that comes with eternally losing access to someone who has given us all his life always weighs heavy on me. It’s been three years since Soul Jah Love died.

Every time I have sat down and tried to write the piece, it became consolation for myself than a tribute to Soul Musaka. His death hurt me, to say the least, and every time I have tried to write an obituary for him, it has ended with a couple of paragraphs and a flood of emotion. After countless hours of soul-searching, I have managed to put my heart aside and write one last piece for Soul Musaka.

The Death Of Soul Jah Love

A night before February 16 whilst mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed, I came across a video of Passion Java announcing that Soul Jah Love was now in critical condition and we should pray for him. I woke up the following day with the Instagram feed awash with Rest In Peace captions to Soul's pictures. For a man who had faced multiple death scares throughout his career, no fragment of mind thought this was his last battle. It was devastating. “God, please not Sauro”.

The announcement sent me on a downward spiral of how much impact Soul Jah Love as an artist and as a personality had on my life and Zimbabwe as a whole.

Discovering Soul Jah Love

I was 13 the very first time I encountered Soul Jah Love. It was inside the Mavhudzi High School dining hall during a term opening gig or Dhanzi as we used to call it back then. Lipa Tee( Stereo 025 owner now and DJ at that time) belted Soul Jah Love's John Terry as part of his set. The sound quality was not the best but I could hear that the music was magical. The delivery was amazing, the rhyme scheme was intelligent and the overall cadence was fresh. I had never heard anyone try to rhyme so hard in Shona and succeed. I fell in love right away. The next time I heard Soul Jah Love it was on the song GumKum/ Simudza Musoro on Zimboflava riddim. I begged a friend to let me listen to the song on a smuggled shuffle/MP3 player (because they were not allowed at school). I heard the song whilst simultaneously dodging evening study and the boarding master. From that moment, I knew who my favourite local artist was going to be and it has been like that ever since.

Soul Jah Love’s Impact

Soul Jah Love changed my life. He changed the way I speak, he changed the way I see people struggling with drug use and he transformed the way I see childlessness and family level 'politics'. My vocabulary never had “Chibaba” or “Makuruwani” before I encountered his music. Now, I do not know any better way to start a conversation than “Chibaba” or “Makuruwani”. I always viewed childlessness as something sacred that should be kept secretive but Soul Jah Love would come out and chant about it in a manner that seemed quite frankly entertaining. I hate drugs and every opportunity I get, I do my best to bash and call out drug abuse. In other cases, my hate for drugs ended up escalating and resulting in me hating the drug addicts as well.

Learning of Soul Jah Love’s drug troubles renewed my perspective. It’s not the person that is terrible, it’s the drugs. We do not get rid of the drug addict but rather the drug addiction. People knowing fully well that Soul Jah Love was battling drugs but still embracing him and ensuring that he felt special is probably one of the things that made him live for as long as he did. It was also a turning point in terms of how I view drug addiction and drug addiction. He was no saint and for all his sins as a result of drugs, I am at least grateful that he was open enough about it and showed the ghetto that at the end of the day, drugs will do more harm than good to you.

Soul Jah Love and the Music

Soul Jah Love was a genius when it came to music. He could easily blend with any sound and make it entertaining. He would chant on an Oskid instrumental and go and sing on a melancholic Sunshine Riddim. Before you are done marveling at his versatility, you would hear him giving Sulu a run for his money on a Dendera beat. That kind of diversity and ability to adapt is God-given. You can’t teach that, it’s either you have it or you do not. Soul Musaka had it in abundance. To highlight just how good Soul Jah Love was. In 2016, Soul Jah Love took up an ad for ZBC. No one likes paying for their TV licenses and the TV license ads are universally sabotaged. Soul Jah Love knew that and he took initiative and decided to do a TV Licence jingle that made a hit on the streets.

“Pay for radio and TV licence pane kugaramumba muine silence”, remember that jam? Well, I know you do. That was an earworm and it still lingers in my brain up to this point. That is one of the best examples of how amazing Soul Jah Love’s prowess was when it came to the mic. We have also had multiple posthumous releases from Soul Jah Love and I’m sure there are hundreds more songs scattered in hard drives all over the country.

Soul Jah Love’s Legacy

I recently went to a ZimDancehall show, yes, those old school ones with over a hundred artists on the poster. Every DJ that came around, would have at least one Soul Jah Love track in their set. Most of the artists that came on stage also had a Soul Jah Love tribute. We can’t talk about ZimDancehall without talking about Soul JahLove. He immortalised the journey and the genre has eternalised him.Soul Jah Love’s eternality goes beyond ZimDanchehall. In 2022, NAMA had a Soul JahLove tribute with several artists. This is one of their most viewed videos. When I watched the tribute I was buzzing and almost tearing up. I hope buzz and the love will live longer than his music. Soul Musaka died in 2021 but Soul Jah Love still lives on. Rest in Peace Soul Musaka, the Soul that Jah loved.

Share with us the songs which had the most impact on you and the industry in general from Soul Jah Love to keep the conversation going. Also like our fresh pages all over social media using the handle and name RiddimsAndRaps!