Zima, $4,5k to bring Marley’s family to Zim

By Bongani Ndlovu

Organisers of of the Zimbabwe Music Awards (Zima) may have been duped of $4,500 in their negotiations to bring in Bob Marley’s family to accept a Lifetime Achievement award on his behalf.

This comes after Bob Marley Music manager, Doreen Crujeiras raised the alarm earlier in the week that the Marley family had not been approached regarding the award yet Zima thought they had already sealed the deal.

Zima wants to honour the late Marley for the role he played in supporting Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence in 1980.

Joseph Nyadzayo, Zima chairman yesterday said they had been in talks with one of Marley’s sons, Julian, through his management. Julian’s management had accepted to receive the award, requesting that Zima deposit $4,500 as a booking fee to have the artiste clear his schedule to travel to Zimbabwe.

“We were dealing with Ras Jabulani (Trevor Hall) who knows Michael Campbell – Julian Marley’s agent. We’d paid $4,500 to secure a booking but it has since come to our attention that we were supposed to approach the Bob Marley foundation and not a family member to award Bob Marley.

The foundation is the one which will forward the request to Marley’s family,” Nyadzayo said.

Indications were that Julian would be able to travel early next year, hence Zima’s decision to postpone the awards ceremony from October, 2015 to next year. A date had not been set as Julian had not yet communicated on when he would be travelling.

Nyadzayo said they had since communicated with Campbell who acknowledged the role played by Crujeiras in Marley’s affairs.

“After we got a phone call from Doreen, we called Michael to ask him if he knew her. He agreed and told us she was the right person to discuss Marley affairs with,” he said.

“Nothing is amiss as we now know where to go and just hope the family delegates the duty to receive the award to Julian.”

The Zima chairman said they were now dealing with Crujeiras in all correspondence and have since emailed a letter to her with a request to award Bob Marley .

“I’ve sent her the letter of notification and invitation. She promised to forward our letter to the family and said she would help us to communicate with the family,” Nyadzayo said.

After speaking with Crujeiras on Monday, Zima organisers are confident the Marley family will accept the Lifetime Achievement award.

“Indications are positive and what we’re waiting for is a date when the family will be available to come and accept the award. Doreen said the family was happy that we’re honouring Bob Marley after 35 years of his death.”

Zima hope to have i-Three at the ceremony as they performed with Bob Marley in Zimbabwe. The Chronicle