Community radio was never meant to be a small version of national radio. It was meant to be a mirror. A mirror of the village, the township, the growth point it serves. WHY ARE THESE STATIONS FAILING THE LOCAL ARTIST?

But today, if you tune into some community radio stations in Zimbabwe, you will not hear the mirror. You will hear Amapiano. You will hear AI-generated music from a computer that has never been to Murewa, Nyanga, Chimanimani, Binga, or Chipinge. You will hear the same three renowned artists on heavy rotation.

And the local artist, the poet from next door, the mbira player, the drama group that rehearses in a classroom, remains silent.

Why?

‎1. We Forgot Who We Are Serving.‎‎

A community radio license is not a commercial license. It was given on one promise that is to serve the community’s interests. Its content should be the content of that community.

If the station is in Manicaland, its sound should be Manicaland. If it is in Matabeleland North, its language, its music, its stories should be of Matabeleland North.

When we play 80% Amapiano and AI music that does not resonate with our mbuya in the village, we are answering a question: Who is being served? It is no longer the community. It is the presenter’s personal playlist.

2. The 75% Rule on local content Is Not A Suggestion

The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) is very clear, 75% local content. That is the law.‎‎

Local content is not just music by renowned artists who are already established. Local content includes the unknown 19-year-old boy or girl who recorded a track in a tuckshop studio at Village in Chimanimani or Nyamhuka 2, Nyanga. That is the talent the quota was meant to protect.

Most community stations are not complying in promoting local, community talent. And the question is why there is no consequence.

3. The Gatekeeping Problem: Is It About Quality or Preference?‎‎

Presenters and managers will tell you, “Local artists produce poor quality.”

That is a lazy excuse.‎‎

What is so special about setting a standard? Every serious radio station in the world has a technical standard. If they require WAV, not MP3 from WhatsApp,  RULES should be set on sound and lyrics.

‎If stations set the standard and publish it, artists will rise to it.

‎‎The real root cause is not quality. It is two things:

a) Manager / Presenter Preference, it is easier to download a ready-made South African Top 20 playlist than to sit down, listen to 50 local submissions, select 10, coach the artists on production, and build them. One is work. One is laziness.

b) The Payola Culture: Is the radio only for those who can produce money or those who can produce music? A community station should never operate like that.

4. We Are Killing The Next Generation

When a presenter plays a renowned artist 20 times a day, it’s not just playing music. The station is telling a child that community success only comes from Harare, Bulawayo or South Africa.

Such stations are refusing to grow the next generation of talent. Every big name/artist was once an unknown. Who gave him his first play?

The drama groups, the poets, the traditionalists, the theatre groups, they have no other platform. National radio will not play them. Community radio is their ONLY hope. When we fail them, they die artistically.

The Way Back To The Drawing Board.

We need to go back and ask: Who owns these radios if not the producers of Art? Stations should:

1.  Publish Music Policy: Every station must publish its submission guidelines on its door and on various online platforms. What quality do they want? How should an artist submit?‎

2.  Reserve Hours for Raw Talent, Stations should create a dedicated, non-negotiable show for instance, “Wari kusumukira”, a shift on it’s own where ONLY artists from the district are played, interviewed and promoted.

‎3.  Go to the Artist, do not wait: Station personnel should leave the studio. Go to the growth points. Hold listening sessions. Record live.

‎4.  Enforcement of the 75% local threshold must be audited through music logs, with real penalties.

Zimbabwe has talent. Unbelievable talent.

What is lacking is not talent. What is lacking is a platform with the courage to believe in its own people before the rest of the world does.

Seeking sponsorship without promoting the original voices of the community is a joke. Sponsors are in the community, those artists would have benefited, seeing the growth from such platforms.

Until all community radios play local, these stations remain just jukeboxes. They are not community radios.

By Bright Barwe