Zimbabwean Musicians Charge Maize Buckets For Show Entrance (Explained)
A music show poster circulating on social media has raised interest amoung Zimbabweans.
On the poster, a band (Simon Mutambi & Cobra Kings) is charging a bucket of Maize (Chibage) for admission to a show they’ll hold at a beerhall in Rafingora (Zimbabwe) this month.
This form of payment struck many as unusual.
Here’s the full poster:
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Pindula got in touch with someone close to the band who explained the model:
These guys (the band) were given a flat fee to perform at that place. Whoever is the promoter of the show, is the one who will have people pay buckets of maize.
It’s because in that area, people are farmers. So they may not have hard cash, but they can bring bags of maize. That will also happen even for beer sales. There’s nothing different here. Isn’t a bucket of maize is around $6? So [effectively] he wil be charging more than he ussualy charges [in cash].
What’s happening here is it’s not the band that’s going to be taking money here. The band was given a flat fee and the promoter holding the event is the one who comes from that area. He is aware of how people in his surroundings can pay up. Because money may be an uphill task for them.
There’s usually scenarios like this in different areas. There’s nothing awkward about this anyway. In other places sometimes they go there and the person receiving payments is the one who knows about the area… Let’s say people have gold but they have no hard cash – maybe you can say a gram of gold for entry.
The band normally charges US $5 admission to its shows.
A gram of gold currently goes for about $56 on the international market.
Zimbabwe has a currency problem, with the country’s own currency sometimes not accepted by informal traders. The US dollar is increasingly used more than the local currency to pay for things.
