Thirty people were killed when a bus plunged into a river in central Kenya at a notorious accident blackspot, a local official said Monday.
The accident occurred late Sunday when the bus was travelling from the town of Meru to the coastal city of Mombasa.
The bus plunged off a bridge about 40 metres (about 130 feet) into the Nithi River valley below.
Pictures published in the local media showed the bus ripped apart after rolling down the steep slope, with reports saying wreckage and bodies were strewn in the water and on the river bank.
Twenty people died on the spot on Sunday, while four died in hospital and another six bodies were recovered on Monday, county commissioner Norbert Komora told reporters.
“The search is still on and we are trying to retrieve the wreckage,” he said.
“Investigations are still going on to establish the cause of the accident that occurred at the Nithi blackspot.”
The number of people killed on Kenya’s roads has increased in recent years.
In the first half of 2022, 1,912 people were killed, up nine percent from 1,754 in the same period last year, according to figures from the National Transport and Safety Authority.
Zimdancehall was once known for its revolutionary lyrics. Now its singers are hyping up businessmen in songs and performing at Zanu-PF rallies.
What started as indistinct chatter of disapproval on the night of 21 May escalated quickly. Crowds had braved the drizzly cold to commemorate Zimdancehall legends and celebrate the tenth anniversary of ChillSpot Records, not to listen to politician after politician gloat about the help they’d allegedly given to the music scene.
The ghetto yuts – a Jamaican term borrowed to refer to young Zimdancehall fans – were fed up. “That’s not what we are here for,” some shouted as bottles flew onto the stage, smashing into fragments.
For observers of Zimbabwe’s music industry, this moment had been a long time coming. For some time now, critics and fans alike have complained that Zimdancehall – a genre that once amplified the muffled voices of the masses – has gradually been hijacked by political and economic elites.
“I cannot even listen to most of the music released nowadays,” says Vincent Musira, a once ardent fan. “Zimdancehall no longer represents ghetto youths. Nowadays, they are chasing what’s trending and the contributions of their sponsors is questionable. If a sponsor is genuine, why would they want to appear on an artist’s music video or be mentioned in a song?”
“A blessing from God to the ghetto”
Zimdancehall, a locally blended spin-off of dancehall and reggae, gained meteoric fame about a decade ago. Despite its sometimes makeshift production, its Jamaican style riddims and grooves became the defining sound of Harare’s poor settlements like Mbare. Its bold and relatable lyrics struck at the heart of many Zimbabweans’ struggles and hopes.
Songs like “Minana” by Soul Jah Love and Cello Culture called out fake prophets at the height of “gospel-preneurship” in 2013. Winky D lamented rampant drug abuse in “Mafira Kureva” or societal immorality in “Pazvikona”. Killer T painted a grim picture of poverty driving young people into crime in “MaSuspects”.
Arnold Kamudyariwa, aka DJ Fantan, was working at a nightclub as the new genre took poor urban areas by storm.
“Back in the day, people would say Mbare is all about crime, prostitution and many other vices. But now when people hear the name Mbare, the first thing that comes to their minds is Zimdancehall,” he says. “Zimdancehall is a blessing from God to the ghetto youths”.
In the early days of the new genre, DJ Fantan co-founded ChillSpot Records with his childhood friends Levels and Ribhe. Together, they transformed his bedroom in the dilapidated Matapi Flats into a recording studio and began nurturing young talent into stars. Similar studios mushroomed elsewhere. From these, artists like Winky D went on to win two international awards as well as countless national gongs. Freeman became a household name across Zimbabwe. Soul Jah Love was declared a national hero when he died aged 31 last year.
“[Zimdancehall] gave ghetto yuts who did not have a future some hope”, says Ras Caleb, one of Chillspot’s first recording artists. “People need to understand that it was a lifeline.”
“Sold for a song”
According to critics, this heyday is well and truly over. They say that the days in which an aspiring unknown could get a slot at ChillSpot studios to blurt out hard-hitting freestyles for free or cheap are long gone. Now, they argue, musicians must sell their soul to promoters and ChillSpot, which has a near monopoly on Zimdancehall records, to get heard. These gatekeepers have the power to make or break a star and have allegedly not hesitated to exercise it, effectively ending the careers of promising artists like Blot and Silent Killer after disagreements.
Coinciding with these shifts, fans also complain that the lyrical content of Zimdancehall has drastically changed. Rather than calling out inequality and corruption, today’s songs almost invariably mention or praise an “mbinga” – i.e. a rich individual, prophet or politician.
Many of the figures being honoured in songs recently are members of Zanu-PF, which already has one eye on next year’s elections. The ruling party’s campaigns have often used music to drum up support in election seasons, but typically using a liberation war narrative. This time, it seems its politicians are looking to use trendy Zimdancehall tunes to target poor urban youth, a demographic that makes up a large portion of the electorate and often sides with the opposition.
“Due to its popularity, Zimdancehall became a target for opportunists who saw a chance to manipulate the vulnerable and uninformed talents,” says music critic Plot Mhako. He says elites have used their wealth and power to co-opt Chillspot and, by extension, the Zimdancehall scene for their own personal gain.
“The mbingas literally usurped the energy,” he says. “They are the main culprits who have worked in cahoots with key industry stakeholders to sell out the genre for a song.”
Fred Zindi, a local academic and music commentator, concurs. “Zimdancehall is on the decline,” he says. “There have been significant changes in the lyrical content as today’s singers are looking out to make money more than to do the ghetto stories of dissing each other.”
Some in the Zimdancehall scene, such as DJ Fantan and Ras Caleb, reject these critiques and insist the genre is as relevant as ever.
“I have stayed in the industry long enough to know that talk is cheap; you cannot stop [critics] from talking,” says DJ Fantan. “Even the day we started recording Zimdancehall, people used to say we would not go far in life, and there was a time when we would be pelted by cans, so we cannot fear comments from ghost accounts [on social media] today.”
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He argues that musicians, some of whom have been criticised for performing at Zanu-PF rallies, continue to respond authentically to what is happening around them. “Zimdancehall is a mirror of the society; it is a reflection, and our artists are like reporters,” he says.
Is Zimdancehall dead?
For many fans, Zimdancehall has lost its way over the past decade as its amateurish production and revolutionary lyrics have made way for commercialised production and a reverence of the rich. Some listeners may have given up on the genre, but others hold out hope of a resuscitation. As the angry response to Chillspot’s ten-year anniversary celebration showed, there are many enthusiasts ready to resist its political takeover.
“Zimdancehall is what the ghetto youths want,” says Munashe Maponga, a passionate fan. “Things are not so great at the moment, but what we need are new artists who will disrupt the current direction it is taking, and the real Zimdancehall will be back.”
Or, as Mhako puts it succinctly: “Zimdancehall is dead but not yet buried.”
Kennedy Nyavaya is a multiple award-winning freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe. His stories have been published in local newspapers including NewsDay and The Standard as well as foreign platforms like Clean Energy Wire (Clew) in Germany.
TRACES of methanol have been discovered in the blood of 21 teens found dead in a club in South Africa last month.
Officials said they are still probing if the levels of the toxic chemical in the bodies of the teenagers – aged between 13 and 17 – were enough to kill them.
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Detectives work at the scene of the mass poisoning at the Enyobeni TavernCredit: Reuters
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Family members weep at the coffins of the 21 teenage victimsCredit: EPA
Cops launched an investigation into the mysterious deaths after an end-of-exams party ended in tragedy at the Enyobeni Tavern on June 26.
Lifeless bodies were found slumped across tables and couches and collapsed on the dance floor at the popular venue with 21 reported dead with “no visible injuries”.
Authorities investigating the horror deaths have now confirmed traces of methanol were found in the bodies of the victims.
Dr. Litha Matiwane, Eastern Cape provincial deputy director for clinical service, said: “Methanol has been detected in all the 21 individuals that were there.
“However, there is still progressive analysis of the quantitative levels of methanol and whether it could have been the final cause of death.”
Methanol is a poisonous, odourless liquid often found in illegally produced alcohol – and overexposure can cause death.
It is yet not known how the youngsters ingested the methanol.
Police Minister General Bheki Cele said officials are waiting for the final toxicology reports to decide if they will press criminal charges.
Matiwane said alcohol poisoning and inhalation of carbon monoxide have both been ruled out as possible causes of death – although traces of both were detected in the bodies of all the victims.
The owner of Enyobeni tavern and some employees were arrested.
They were released on bail as facing charges related to the violation of alcohol trading laws – including the sale of alcohol to children.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke at a mass funeral for the teens and vowed to take action to stop alcohol being served to children under the age of 18.
Devastated locals have called for the tavern to be closed down.
A 17-year-old girl living nearby, who only gave her name as “Lolly”, said: “Everyone wants it closed down because they sell alcohol to under-age children.
“Everyone is angry, everyone is sad because of what happened.”
The incident shares eerie similarities with the Throb nightclub disaster that happened in March 2000.
A detonation of a teargas canister at the Throb nightclub in Chatsworth, South Africa, resulted in a stampede which subsequently led to the death of 13 children.
Another 100 were injured while the youngest victim was 11 years old.
The club was filled with 600 children aged 11-14 celebrating the end of term.
The US gun lobby on Monday seized on the “heroic” acts of a civilian who used a pistol to shoot dead a young man who had opened fire in a shopping mall, pushing its case in the midst of a fierce debate over the regulation of firearms.
On Sunday evening, Jonathan Sapriman, a 20-year-old white man whose motives remain unknown, opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in an Indiana shopping mall.
He killed a 30-year-old man and a couple seated in a restaurant space, and injured two more, before being shot dead by Elisjsha Dicken, a 22-year-old customer who was carrying an unlicensed pistol, as recently authorized under local laws.
“Many more people would have died last night if not for a responsibly armed citizen that took action very quickly within the first two minutes of the shooting,” said Greenwood police chief James Ison during a press briefing.
Ison said the shooter appeared to have prepared for his deadly assault by dropping his cell phone in a toilet and burning his computer in an oven before he set out. He also had a second assault rifle, a pistol and a large amount of ammunition, the police official said.
The powerful lobby group, the National Rifle Association (NRA), immediately seized on the tragedy to reassert its line that an armed public is good for public security.
“We will say it again: The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” the NRA said on Twitter.
Another group pushing against any restrictions on firearms ownership, the CCRKBA, echoed the NRA line.
“We carry guns to defend ourselves and others from criminals and crazy people in sudden emergencies,” its chief, Alan Gottlieb, said in a statement.
“That courageous young man is rightfully being hailed as a hero,” he said.
Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign, which is pushing for stricter gun-control laws, hit back on Twitter. “Let me be clear: If more guns made us safer, America would be the safest country in the WORLD,” he said.
In the same vein, Shannon Watts, founder of the organization Moms Demand Action, shared graphs placing the United States at the head of the developed countries in terms of weapons per capita but also for deaths by firearms.
Nearly 400 million guns were in circulation among the civilian population in the United States in 2017, or 120 guns for every 100 people, according to the Small Arms Survey project.
More than 24,000 people have been shot dead since the start of the year, including 13,000 by suicide, according to the Gun Violence Archives site.
Several of the recent gun rampages, including the shooting in a school in Texas and a supermarket frequented by African-Americans in Buffalo, caused particular shock across the country, prompting lawmakers to agree in June, for the first time in 30 years, to pass modest reform of gun laws.
Three people were killed and another three injured Sunday at a mall in the US state of Indiana, officials said, the latest in a spate of gun violence in the country.
“We experienced a mass shooting this evening at the Greenwood Park Mall,” Mark Myers, the mayor of Greenwood, Indiana, said in a statement.
“We have three fatalities at this time and three others injured.”
Myers said that the gunman had been shot dead by “an armed individual.”
The Greenwood police shared a post on their Facebook page asking for witnesses to the shooting to contact the department with information.
The attack is the latest in a wave of gun violence plaguing the United States, where about 40,000 deaths a year are caused by firearms, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
It comes just weeks after a gunman opened fire on a July 4 parade in an affluent Chicago suburb, killing seven people and injuring at least three dozen.
That shooting followed two massacres in May that saw 10 Black people gunned down at an upstate New York supermarket, and 19 children and two teachers slain at an elementary school in Texas.
The recent surge in gun violence has reignited the divisive debate over firearm regulation. A committee of the US House of Representatives is set to vote this week for the first time in nearly 20 years on a bill that would ban assault weapons.
