Mozambique: 13 make it to Moz Slam Spoken Word Poetry finals in Maputo
He tried to sell pirate Wazimbo CDs to… Wazimbo! Goes on trial today, his ‘supplier’ not yet ‘identified’
10:49 CAT | 12 Sep 2017
Youtube (File) / Wazimbo is one of the 'living legends' of Mozambican music
A CD hawker in downtown Maputo attempted to sell pirated Wazimbo records to the renowned Mozambican musician in person.
According to Notícias, Wazimbo was in downtown Maputo when he was hailed by a seller of pirated discs, telling him that he had Mozambican rarities available.
The musician, who was in one of his usual walks, kept his cool and asked the peddler if he had any Wazimbo albums, to which the street vendor replied with an enthusiastic “I have! It’s the ‘Raízes’ [Roots] album, still fresh. It has just been released. If you want to buy many copies, we can negotiate a price,” far from imagining that the person to whom he was trying to sell the pirated discs was Wazimbo himself.
Notícias relates that the icon of Mozambican music undertook to buy a significant number of discs, supposedly to send to his relatives in Europe. But, he told the salesman, he did not have the money in hand, so could go they to an ATM to withdraw the sum?
With the seller in the musician’s car, Wazimbo drove to the nearest police station, where he turned the street vendor in with evidence to motivate the police authorities to quickly formalise his detention.
“At the time, he was unwilling to say where he got the pirated material, whereas my concern was to establish for sure where the factory was that was distributing this material in our area,” said the man behind of one of the country’s best voices.
The vendor, who was arrested immediately and released on bail later, was to appear in court at 10:00 a.m. this morning at the 2nd Section of the Judicial Court of the Municipal District of Ka Mpfumu in Maputo.
Wazimbo says the judgment will be of paramount importance, since most street vendors do not even know that they are trading illegally, and this may be the first step towards enlightening them.
“It is good for them to be aware that this crime damages our work, because the investment of making a record is too high to be lost under the eyes of everyone,” Wazimbo said.
On the other hand, Wazimbo acknowledges the fault on the part of the customers who keep the business alive, since if there were no buyers there would be no sellers.
Source: Notícias
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