Groove Magazine Zimbabwe Issue 2 | Page 14

wasn’t in Zimbabwe; so people got to discover me and my music plus download it all online. That’s basically how I started. So now that I’m done with university, I’m starting to focus more on my music. GM.: What were you studying at university? Davina: Law. GM.: Are you planning to be a full time lawyer or you are going to try taking the music route. Davina: (Chuckles) I’m still battling with that. Right now I’m going to try do both, it would be a shame to sit on a degree I worked so hard for plus I’d get to use money from that to finance my music career. However, to be honest, it has always been a dream of mine to just be a fulltime musician. GM.: Looking at the music industry what do you think are the challenges that musicians face in general? Davina: Well I cant speak for everyone but for most the main challenge is a financial one. It costs a lot to get everything done, from recording to packaging your work to putting shows together, shooting videos etc and most of us aren’t signed to some huge label like in other countries, so we pretty much finance everything ourselves. That’s number one. Number two is the marketing and distribution of the work. From trying to get people to come to your shows to getting 10 them to buy your music and know where to find the music… at times that can be very difficult. Also many of us have to initially let people download it for free, to become known. So it’s very hard to then transition from that to making people buy it later. Those are some of the challenges. And what do you think can be done to improve it? Davina: (Sighs) I don’t have all the answers but there is so much that one could talk about. I think we firstly just need to put the right structures in place (in the music industry) and I don’t think that it’s up to just the artists, we need a lot of help from e.g. big companies then we need to find a proper market for the music and ways for it to become easily accessible to everyone who’d like to hear and buy it. GM.: Any highlights from your career so far? Davina: Hmm. (Thinking). Well that’s kind of difficult to answer because every little thing so far has been a highlight. When I released my first song, that was a highlight. My first performance was a highlight. My first music video (which is on YouTube) was a highlight. You see? (Laughs) GM.: Have you released an album, or when can we expect an album? Davina: You can expect an album later this year. I’m Groove Magazine Zimbabwe almost done recording it and I’m VERY happy with how it’s sounding. GM.: We understand that you are