The song “Asipheli Moya” by ASAPH, featuring Msiz’kay won the Zim Hip Hop Awards 2020 award for best Best Collaboration. The chorus of this song translates to:
“We fall and we rise,
We never give up,
We want success,
We never give up
We’ve been in and we’ve been out,
We’ never give up,
you name it we tried it,
We’ll do whatever it takes”
“Asipheli Moya” does an exceptional job of summarizing the struggles that Zimbabweans are going through and how they decide to stay strong, hope, and fight for a better Zimbabwe. Being that I do not know much about the social and political climate of Zimbabwe, hearing the message of resilience and strength that this song portrays, it peeked my interest to look into what challenges Zimbabwe is currently facing.
Reading the comment section, I saw that a particularly interesting message was repeated: “Justice for Paul”. Upon doing some research, I found that on May 20th, 2020, Paul Munakopa was murdered by members of the Zimbabwe Republic police. He was an unarmed man, who had gone on an evening drive with his fiancé. After noticing they were being followed by an unidentifiable vehicle, he immediately drove off. Instead of informing Paul that they were the police and prompting him to pull over, they chased after him in high pursuit. During the pursuit, Paul’s vehicle and the Police’s vehicle collided. The police then fired at Paul’s car, fatally injuring him. He died shortly after his admission at the United Bulawayo Hospitals. Reportedly, there has been no attempt to bring his murderers to justice.
This incident happened before George Floyd. It was interesting for me to see that police brutality is not just an issue in places where POC are a minority. This helps prove the point that the issue of police brutality is not only one about racism, but also about an abuse of power.
Below is a petition you can sign to get justice for Paul Munakopa:
https://www.change.org/p/zimbabwe-republic-police-justice-for-paul-munakopa
ASAPH YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtyiUs0Aq_q6RbuPpqrxapA