One of Namibia’s leading Kwaito stars, Morocky Mbwaluh, aka The Dogg, recently published his autobiography titled,Ther Dogg: Untold Story. As part of the reading culture campaign launched by the New Era Publication Corporation (NEPC) in conjunction with the Minister of Education, Honourable Dawid Namwandi, Artlife has been serialising this autobiography each Friday.
Gazza and all his dancers saw this boy repeatedly break the rules; the unanswered question I still have is why the whole Gazza crew had condoned the boy’s actions. This boy was beaten up. I am not sure what the fans used in the act, but I understand his head sustained some injuries caused by some object. Foolishly, his crew ran to the police station and laid charges, probably assault charges, but I am not sure against whom in particular. Gazza, being a father, knew the responsibilities that goes along with it, he would have acted to stop the boy in the first place. In the end, they could have avoided the rush to the police station after the avoidable damage was done. When you teach your children at home, they will not end up embarrassing you in public.
To clear his name, Gazza called me the next day to seek a peace agreement or truce. What went through my mind is that he lacked consistency in his judgement. I am the same person who has been trying to call him for the last two years seeking an end to our misunderstanding, and he has succeeded in creating an impression of not being interested. Even during the writing of this book, he blatantly refused to give his part. Can you imagine the position he was putting me in. This peace initiative smelled of a dire need to clear his name in the papers because they were all over him.
I hold no grudges. Despite what the past kept telling me, a part of me also thought of forgiveness at that moment. So I gave Gazza the benefit of the doubt once more. The next weekend, we were both scheduled to perform individually at the Sam Nujoma Stadium. My position was that we had peace once again as artists and this obviously had to penetrate through to the fans. After all, it is an open secret that our fans have had fights owing to the misunderstandings between the two of us. In all fairness, our fans take our positions, so it would not make sense to be in harmony with a fellow artists, while the fans are still harbouring hatred towards one another.
I figured that the best way to express this message of peace was through music. Given the upcoming show, I thought we could give the peace agreement a boost and get the message across by doing a song together on stage. This explains why I was trying to call him all week. I wanted us to organise how we will get the message across to our fans. My idea was to pick a song we would perform.
Typical of him, my calls were unanswered. He never bothered to return them and this left me puzzled all week. I did not know where we stood.
The night of the performance confirmed my suspicions. When he was on stage, he took it upon himself to invite me openly. I still don’t know why he wanted my presence on stage that night, given his refusal to speak to me. As artists, we all know that stage appearances of whatever nature are prearranged. Given our history and his recent silence, I could not trust his intentions and decided not to go on stage because, to me, this was an attempt to catch me off guard and help him manifest his hidden agendas.
I am a businessman and, like I said before, as an artist, your image is everything in the music business. This was one of his many publicity stunts.
When Gazza launched an album in Oshakati a few years ago, the media was made to believe that we had put our differences aside since I was to perform at his CD launch. Among the guest performers was Zola, who came in from South Africa. I am not sure who misled the media with the notion that Zola had united the two of us and got us to settle our differences amicably.
Zola is a great Kwaito artists and everybody knows him. He has nothing to prove to anyone- he has done it all. But in this case, he was also a guest artist like everybody else. What further amazed me was noting how Gazza was selfishly trying to keep Zola to himself. It is shameful that he did not want Zola to speak to me, but unlike him, Zola called me after my performance when I was about to leave. I saw it and Charlie, my manager at the time, can also testify that Gazza tried to pull Zola back when he was approaching me. In Zola’s own words, he said, ‘’These are my people, I do not know who supports me”. I am not sure how Gazza must have felt hearing this from someone he tried to hinder from talking to me. Zola even asked to do a song with me. To me, this was a reflection that my talent is being recognised, and this dude I helped bring in the music industry was envious of me.
I want to make it categorically clear that, although Zola also spoke to me about settling my differences with Gazza, my appearance at Gazza’s CD launch was purely business. We had an agreement according to which I would appear at his CD launch and he would do the same at mine.
That agreement explained my position on the matter and he knows it. If someone in his camp or elsewhere gave the media the wrong impression apart from the one I just mentioned, it would be beyond me.
I performed at his CD launch despite the ill feeling that he created by not fulfilling his contractual obligations fully. He was supposed to organise a bus for my backup dancers and associates as well as provide meals.
We all know that all over the world artists have their egos, are jealous and have personal agendas, which can cause misunderstandings. It is thus the reasonable thing to organise different buses and, at times, different accommodation, where possible, to avoid drama. I am not sure what he would have done had a fight broken out between various artistic groupings on the bus he chose to squeeze them in.
As a guest at his launch, he did not even bother to assure me and my associates were treated accordingly. We did not even speak that night, but I did not make an issue out of that and just went about my business.
Given that he brought up the idea of the CD launch appearances, you would expect a positive attitude from him, but it appears his inferiority complex puts him in a situation where he has to undermine another artist to feel superior.
This kind of behaviour by a grown man is feminine, thus I do not regret calling him a girl in a boy’s skin, as reported some years ago. He is after all a queen. The media apology that followed afterwards was written by my brother Bruce, who felt it necessary to apologise for the sake of publicity. Inasmuch as I was hurt, I have a record label to run, and although there are times when I have to stand up for myself, there are also times when I have to promote and uphold the image I have built in this industry.
In fact, I am in no mood to sound remorseful towards someone who is determined to undermine and bring me down as an artist. (To be continued next Friday)