By Trevor Makonyonga
The war between the two rappers Resilience ‘Gze’ Chekera and Prince ‘Noble Stylz’ Butawo might saved local hip hop adding a new crop of listeners.
Friday 8 May 2020 is when it all started.
Gze dropped a six minutes dissing Noble Stylz whom he felt had disrespected him.
Gze would later on go to radio and say, “I have never had any beef with anyone in the industry I try to stay away from people’s issues.”
Noble said that he was surprised at the attack (probably that’s why he took ages to respond) and he also says he at first held back a lot.
“So I woke up to a 6 minute diss track and I was like this is not GZE, that’s why in my first response (GZE Lecture) I held back a lot,” Noble said speaking to a local radio station.
Focusing on the music that was produced one could say Gze came out guns blazing, prepared for war.
He attacked the person and personality of Noble Stylz from the time he came to Harare to his acquaintances. He also took a dig on Noble’s presence on social media which he referred to as the stage where the Masvingo rapper performs just for the likes and comments.
Fatality was the launch of a personal war but surprisingly in Noble’s first reply, The Gze lecture, he failed to merely focus on Gze but launched a personal war on comedian, Carl Joshua Ncube.
In the Gze lecture, Noble went for bars but he failed to match the lethal nature of Fatality. It was like Jay Z did with Ether. One would say the song made more of an impact as a Carl Joshua diss than a Gze reply. There was some detectable respect in his verses as if to say he felt a little inferior to Gze given that the two songs are proof that these rappers had some relationship.
Hours after the release of The Gze lecture, Gze responded with another lethal and vernomous track, Dhaf. He was going for Noble and Noble alone. He certainly focused on his target and didn’t misdirect his bullets. Dhaf was more of a follow up of Fatality but not as lethal.
Noble took a day to come up with a reply, C10 Gze lecture. The first verse of the song flattered to deceive. He really came guns blazing talking about how Gze and Jnr Brown are fake and how Gze slept with his friend’s ex. It was building up to be juicy but then he switched off and started talking about a now irrelevant Mariachi, Carl Joshua Ncube (where his real beef is) and a whole click he affiliated to Gze. He then called for an on screen battle which by the look of things will not really change the outcome.
Verdict: Inorder to respond to the missiles launched by Gze at the moment Noble would need an entire album. The easiest route which he should have taken was to be silent and not respond. Now that he responded and him being the pole bearer of the genre at the moment, his responses could have a weight on his status. By a margin Gze took this round.
Gze did not rule out the possibility of resolving issues with Noble when he said, “We are men we can have a conversation if it works out we see.”
“For people it was entertainment but for me it was a real issue.” Gze also said.
Real issue or not, hip hop came back on the waves and hopefully it will stay there like Zimdancehall did.
