Groove Magazine International Issue 3 Issue 3 | Página 5

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GM: Tell us about yourself and your genre of
music.
Synik: Synik is a Hip Hop/Spoken word artist
from Harare.
GM: Talk to us about your genre of music and
how you started?

Poetic Justice

By Peggie Shangwa

Groove magazine caught up with the
phenomenal Hip Hop/ Spoken word
artist Synik who notonly gave us an
insight on what drives his art but to
also update us on what's been happening on the Hip Hop frontier.
We managed to steal some time in
between his rehearsals to sit down
and chat with Gerald 'Synik' Mugwenhi and what an amazing and relaxing
time we has with the down to earth Hip
Hop and Spoken word Artist.

COVER STORY

Synik: "Sin City" which came out in 2012, was a play on a
movie by that name but its more about 'Synik City'-about my
interaction with Harare and how it eventually shaped me.
Prior to meeting with Begotten Son, the guy who then
produced the album, none of the tracks existed. I met up with
the guys who created the concept for the album and they were

Synik : I grew up listening to Hip Hop; I fell in

done in one night. The album art was out with the release date

live with it as a kid so eventually I started

and everything. The creation of the album was a crazy period.

writing my own material around form 3 and

We met up with a few producers, FTR the guy who gave us the

4. I recorded a couple years after that. I got

skeleton of what we eventually built the album on. He gave us

onto the scene locally around 2006 when I

beats and then I wrote a mist of the songs to those beats. The

started going to events like the Poetry Slam,
The Circle, Mashoko and that's how I started
linking up with other people in the culture and
interacting with other MCs. Hip Hop in
Zimbabwe is interesting for various reasons. I
don't think it's the most widely accepted art
form but those who practice it; it's a beautiful
way to express yourself.

songs evolved as we added some live elements. The whole
process was organic; it lasted two and a half months. It's a
12 track album and some of the songs are autobiographical,
songs like "Hamurarwe" that paints a picture of my interaction
with the city and how I saw it. "Muripo", which is three letters, I
write to members of my family. "Losing sleep" is a song about
my then girlfriend and still my best friend. "Life I chose" is a
song which talks about my decisions to leave my job at the

GM: What inspires your work?

time. The album was pretty much based upon my life. Then

Synik: I don't know if there is any particular

we have "Marching as one", a song inspired by a period where

theme that you could trace in my music. I'm
inspired by life basically.

MUSIC

GM: Tell us about your album "Sin City"?

I was seeing a lot of injustices around me and how the people
were rising up. Around the same time of the Arab Spring.