Malcom Mufunde and Yaad Drop Emcee FM Album After Winning Best Underground At Zim Hip-hop Awards 2021

Malcom Mufunde is not knew to the game.  After a decade of consistently dishing out  exceptional lyricism the planets finally aligned in 2021, where a project he dubbed Trash that he did with Synik was celebrated by a unanimous audience.

GET THE ALBUM HERE

Synik is known for the legendary Syn City as a thorough and respected GOAT level emcee in Zimbabwe. In Malcoms project he was there to produce beats. He didn't put a verse on any of the tracks.

Trash trended for over a month and the out come is that Malocom has been crowned best underground artist for 2021. Ten years in in the making. Look at destiny.


He went to his Facebook last night to share an old Kanye video that says, "Everybody want to know what would do if I didn't win... I guess we'll never know."

He also went on to share his thoughts on the win and  expressed how Dodger's untimely demise helped with the title of his newest offering.

"I never expected Trash to have the reach it had and receive as much acclaim as it did. It was uncompromisingly hip-hop, and that’s not the best commercial move in the current era of our culture. But after the unexpected happened, I began wondering what my next step would be.


The late Donald Marindire always tagged his posts #RadioDodger whenever he shared our music on his wall, and I am not sure whether that’s what inspired me to come up with the concept for my next album or not, but I know I was always fascinated by it. I talked to him about it, and we started looking for emcees that would help me bring this project to life. My cute idea was to assemble the Avengers of ZimHipHop and work together on an album centered around a fictional radio show- like Radio Dodger.

But there was a tiny problem- just about everyone I reached out to wanted to get paid for their guest verse. This came to me as a surprise, but it shouldn’t have. It was in that moment that I realized this is actually a career to many, and money has to be made. And they were right, so I should not have been surprised at all when they’d name their prices, which ranged from $30 to $1000. 

These are people doing a job, and at the end of the day- workers expect to get paid.  The problem wasn’t that $1000 was too steep. I wouldn’t have been able to pay them even if they’d asked for a dollar. Trash was a result of The Synik and Coco Foundation for Broke Rappers- and I’m a beneficiary. I’ve never made a cent from my work, and I’ve never expected to. I have always shared my music for free with the five people (at most) willing to listen. Trash changed that from 5 to maybe 500 but what didn’t change is my approach. My art is free (Mbonisi prefers “priceless” lol). I say this to state that I just did not have the $30 or $1000 to reinvest into this passion project, otherwise I would have.

When Donald learned of the roadblock I’d hit, he started reaching out to various emcees himself- just like he’d reached out to several influencers to push #Trash before that. Like magic, free verses were offered. In other cases, $1000 became $50. Such was the charm of Donald. But before he could see this through, tragedy struck. I never got to meet Donald. The entirety of our interactions are archived in digital memorabilia. For someone I’d never met, his death affected me greatly, as I’m sure it did all of us. I had no relationships of any kind with these rappers. He’d become my middleman, my agent, my cheat-code into the big league. 

I wasn’t sure prefacing this release with this story would sit well with many, given the context. To be honest, I’m still not sure. I am aware it really might appear as if I’m exploiting Donald’s name for clicks. But I know where my heart is. I had a longer essay praising Donald when BARD dropped, a whole thesis when Halcyon Days dropped, and he helped me set up my Genius page- a major reason why Trash was accessible. It just would be worse if I did not give credit to the man who made all this possible. Unfortunately, our initial plan did not materialize. The guests you see on this project are the ones whom I’d already started working with before August 26. 

Lastly, I’d like to thank everyone who helped Trash become the milestone it is- and that’s all of you. I love you. Also, I won the Best Underground gong at last night’s ZimHipHop Awards. It’s all purely coincidental as I did not expect to win anything but this just ties up with the theme of this album. Made me chuckle a bit when that connected. Two of the features on this album were also nominated in the same category- another coincidence. In hip-hop fashion, my acceptance speech is a barfest. Listen to Track #10 on this, lol.

Ladies and gentlemen…my magnum opus. This is Emcee FM."