{"id":4978,"date":"2022-12-12T06:52:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T06:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/?p=4978"},"modified":"2022-12-28T00:59:53","modified_gmt":"2022-12-28T00:59:53","slug":"tanzanian-singer-harmonize-apologizes-for-dancehall-collab-with-konshens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/?p=4978","title":{"rendered":"Tanzanian Singer Harmonize Apologizes for Dancehall Collab with Konshens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Popular Tanzanian singer Harmonize has had to apologize to his country for releasing the Dancehall-fusion song titled\u00a0\u2018Weed Language\u2019<\/em>,<\/strong> which features Jamaican star\u00a0Konshens, and now says that the song violates the values and culture of the East African nation.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Capital FM Kenya reported that the Tanzanian was summoned by the Tanzania Drug Control and Enforcement Unit over the content in the song, which the State agency says was promoting the consumption of marijuana.\u00a0 Additionally, another report from The Standard Kenya stated that the singer was also summoned by his country\u2019s music governing body, Baraza la Sanaa la Taifa (BASATA), following which he made the apology.<\/p>\n

Recreational use of marijuana is criminalized in Tanzania and attracts a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.\u00a0 However, in the song, Harmonize, in his verse, mimics taking puffs of ganja over and over and coughs repeatedly, while Konshens\u2019 voice rings out \u201cganja burnin\u201d at intervals.\u00a0 \u201cHow do you call weed in your language?\u201d the Tanzanian groans out over and over in the song\u2019s lyrical refrain, as if under the influence, before stating the various names for ganja in various African countries.<\/p>\n

Some of Harmonize\u2019s content, which was recorded in the Swahili language, also describe the feeling that results from smoking marijuana, according to Capital FM.\u00a0 A little more than midway the four-minute song, Konshens begins his verse, on the up-tempo beat, reeling out the names for marijuana in Jamaica.<\/p>\n

\u201cWi call it ganja, wi call it herb
\nWi call it high grade, dat a fi di nerve
\nSmoke it anyweh wi guh inna di world
\nA still marijuana, no matta weh di term\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Capital FM, subsequent to being ordered to appear before the authorities, Harmonize, in a statement released by his management, said that the song violates the values and culture of his home country\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cHe added\u00a0that the song was even pulled down from social media platforms and its lyrics will be replaced by words that do not offend Tanzanian values,\u201d the report stated.<\/p>\n

The Standard Kenya newspaper reported that the\u00a0Bongo Flava<\/em>\u00a0star, in his apology to Tanzanians and his fans after being summoned by BASATA, over\u00a0Weed Language<\/em>, had shared a statement on social media, saying that the song goes against his country\u2019s \u201cculture and ethics and was, therefore, a misrepresentation of the nation\u201d.\u00a0 The newspaper also noted that \u201cas a mitigation tactic, Harmonize explained that he was forced to pull down the song from all social media platforms with a promise to do better at producing more meaningful songs\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kenyan publication Pulse Live also reported yesterday that Harmonize had deleted\u00a0\u2018Weed Language\u2019<\/em><\/strong> from YouTube and had stated further that he had only recorded the song to \u201cwiden his music reach across borders\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cThe whole Konde management would like to apologize for the content that was aired in our song Weed Language. We had intended to reach a wider audience with the song, but its content is against the music regulations in the country,\u201d the singer was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n

\"\"However, over on Konshens\u2019 YouTube channel, where the video was released yesterday and still stands, followers from across the globe have joined in and have begun posting the names for ganja in their respective countries, seemingly oblivious that the song was courting controversy in Tanzania.<\/p>\n

On his Instagram page, where the Jamaican had also shared a snippet of the video a week ago, he urged his fans to reveal the names for the weed in their respective countries.\u00a0 \u201cDrop ur flag and tell me whats the street slang for Weed in your country\ud83d\ude00. \ud83c\udf0d.@harmonize_tz,\u00a0this is deff diferent but i FW it heavy\ud83d\ude04\ud83c\udf84\ud83d\udca8\ud83d\ude80,\u201d he wrote, to which Harmonize replied: \u201cbomboclaat \u2764\ufe0f\u2764\ufe0f\u2764\ufe0f\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Popular Tanzanian singer Harmonize has had to apologize to his country for releasing the Dancehall-fusion song titled\u00a0\u2018Weed Language\u2019, which features Jamaican star\u00a0Konshens, and now says that the song violates the values and culture of the East African nation. On Thursday, Capital FM Kenya reported that the Tanzanian was summoned by the Tanzania Drug Control and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-4978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-breakingnews"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4979,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4978\/revisions\/4979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}