ANDY BROWNS WIDOW NADINE- I MISS MY MAN Andy Browns widow, Nadine has spoken about her life with the late musician who died two years ago. She spoke about how she met the late Brown, their shared dreams, working with him as a backing vocalist, his illness, the pain of losing him, the mammoth task of raising their two sons, trying to revive Andy’s band The Storm and finally launching a solo career. “I was Andy’s artiste, I was signed by Chakaza Studios, having met him through music while I was working first with Roki and Pauline and then with his daughter Ammara with whom I worked for a Music Crossroads competition in 2004,” said Nadine as she began her narration. “While signed to Chakaza Studios, I did a lot of vocals for Andy himself, Mateo, Ammara and Mic Inity, to name just a few. I even had my own recordings, about eight tracks, which I will release one day,” she said. The Bulawayo-born but Gweru-bred beauty says her relationship with Andy changed from artiste-producer or rather mentor-mentee to being lovers when she stood up for him during a brawl with the police at a show in Gutu. “He got into an altercation with the police over payment, the show was cancelled, everyone was angry with him and the police were holding him. “It was my first outing with the band, everyone just watched as he was harassed, but I stood up for him. “I told them I was his daughter and convinced them to release him into my custody and finally they agreed. “He told me that no one had ever done such a thing for him and from there everything just came naturally, one thing led to the other,” she said. Nadine told of how Andy was a good father to his children, helping them with homework and taking them to school. “When I look at all his children including the grown-ups, I’m filled with sadness in my heart. “He had a way with all his children, he knew exactly what to say to them, how to handle their problems — in short, he played the fatherly role very well,” she said. Nadine also revealed her late husband’s love for politics. “Despite the fact that he was a shy guy, Andy loved politics and always said that one day he would go back to school to study political science. It’s sad that I only understood why he was who he was after he was gone,” she said. She says losing Brown was not just a great loss to her, his sons and daughters or the family as a whole, but a loss to everyone. “There is a lot that people including those very close to him like myself never got to understand about Andy, especially his support for land reform, it was because of his strong rural background, he is someone who was affected by colonial rule. “In the end all he wanted to do was change the world around him. He wanted to see black people being economically empowered. Musically, he helped almost everyone he could. “He recorded Mokoomba well before anybody knew about their existence. “He could just be impressed by a mbira artiste in Dande or Epworth or Zvishavane and immediately take them to his studio to record, for free,” she explained. Adding: “I do not believe that Andy is gone. He lives through his music, through his children, through his philanthropic works and through his legacy. Our two sons, Mawunganidze Andy Junior and Matsikachando Al, will one day carry on with their father’s legacy.” Having been mentored by the late Brown and having understood him, Nadine, who is set to release her debut album, a reggae-dancehall effort, Love is the Way, some time in June, believes she will deliver her late husband’s message, if not all of it, then just a part. It is that album that will launch Nadine as a solo artiste who fuses traditional Zimbabwean music with reggae. As she creates a new sound and cements her place among top local reggae musicians, Nadine muses over her past, particularly her moments with the late Brown, “the man who stood for what he believed in”. “Every show I perform is a dedication to Andy,” said Nadine. “He believed in me so much that even as we fulfilled our show at a gala in Chipinge three weeks before he died, he told me that he didn’t know how long he was going to be sick and said ‘you need to take care of us now — lead the band’,” she added. Nadine Brown and The Storm were to continue performing after Brown’s death, fulfilling all previously booked shows. “I got to a point where I could not take the pressure from the Brown family any more. “I had to drop the band and started performing using CDs but that is also the time when Gaza Commander, the guy I was working with, re-introduced me to Mic Inity and Robert Zhuwawo,” said Nadine. She went on to perform with Mic Inity for almost a year as a backing vocalist before introducing her own sets on his show and finally getting her on day, a Saturday. The band, Red Radicals, which also backs Mic Inity and Jiggaz, two other artistes that are part of the Red Fox Family, are also the players of instruments for Nadine. Her benefactor, Zhuwawo, says on March 29, his artiste, Nadine, will become the first female reggae-dancehall artiste in Zimbabwe who plays with a live band.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 08:12:08 +0000
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