“There Are A Lot Of People Who Say That Urban Grooves Has Fizzled Out And Dancehall Has Taken Over”‘ Says Sanii
The Ndofefeterwa hitmaker said that when they started music, it was different from now because nowadays everybody wants to segregate into genres.Urban grooves is not a genre, because he can’t go to another country and say I sing urban grooves, there is nothing like that but I would rather say urban grooves is a lifestyle, this is urban music, all of it .
”Urban grooves is a way that young musicians 15 years ago, got together in the name of music, wanting to differentiate themselves from Tuku music, from Museve, from Dendera so they basically had to come up with an identity and this was the only way we could be identified” he added.
He said that back then it was difficult for an artiste like David Chifunyise to say I am a hip-hop artiste or for Sniper to say I sing dancehall and make a significant impact in the industry because the power was in the numbers.
”To make up the numbers we had to come under one roof so under that umbrella we had r&b artistes like myself, dancehall artistes like Sniper, hip-hop artistes like Stunner and a bunch of other genres that were associated with youth culture. We needed to come together as a movement, to establish ourselves as young artistes and that was the only way we could make a statement” said Makhalima
”All the music that is being sang by these young people evolved from the urban grooves movement because if we had not put up that united front to begin with we would not be talking about hip-hop or dancehall being in the mainstream industry” he added.
Sani Makhalima said that the term Urban Grooves came from a compilation CD that was made by Delani Makhhalima, who he can say is the father of urban grooves and it was called ‘Urban Grooves Vol 1’ and on that album there was a variety of sound and that is how the term came about.
