Jacob Moyana

Wife

Jacob Moyana's wife is Emma Mbewe, who also doubles as the manager.^[2]

Children

In a 2014 interview he said he had two children.^[3] In August 2014, Moyana lost a six-month-old baby. According to the musician, the baby succumbed to tonsillitis.^[4]

Career

Before he formed his own band, Moyana was a lead guitar player for Joseph Garakara's band.^[3]

In 2002 Moyana was in the band Tinashe Express which won the Chibuku Road to Fame competition. The band played traditional music and after recording many songs which failed to please both fans and promoters they changed style to Sungura and that’s when Ghetto Express was born.

Narrating how he composed the song Munotidako, Moyana said he had a dream one day whilst he was in Beitbridge. In the dream Moyana said he was singing the chorus and the trees and other plants in my dream would respond by jumping up and dancing along with him. He said:

"I was in Beitbridge one day when I dreamt singing the chorus to the song and the trees and other plants in my dream would respond by jumping up and dancing along with me. The dream was very vivid so I woke up and immediately started practising the song with my band and we sang it that very night to the delight of the crowd at the show."

^[1]

In 2017, Moyana bagged a three-month contract to perform at the Boksburg Ekhurleni Hotel in South Africa.^[2]

In 2016, Moyana reportedly fell on hard times and turned into a tra­di­tional healer to make ends meet. A rel­a­tive, who re­fused to be named, told The Herald that Moyana had no per­ma­nent place and was mov­ing from one place to an­other heal­ing pa­tients af­flicted by dif­fer­ent ail­ments. Con­tacted for com­ment Moy­ana is­sued con­tra­dict­ing state­ments but later toned down, claim­ing that he was as­sist­ing his wife who is a prophet.^[5]

Arrest

In July 2014, Moyana was arrested for allegedly buying a stolen public address (PA) system.

Moyana allegedly bought the PA system he had used in an all-night show at Salaco Night Club in Mutapa, Gweru, from one of the club’s disc jockeys identified as Godfrey Maposa who had claimed that it belonged to him.

Moyana was invited to perform at the show and he later allegedly connived with Maposa to steal three-band speakers (two medium and one bass band), three-band twitters and three 50m electronic transmission cables that belonged to the club owner Langton Nyashanu.

Maposa handed the equipment to Moyana after the show and it was paid for. The equipment was ferried to Moyana's base in Redcliff.

The club supervisor Lawrence Mupuwi discovered that some equipment was missing and quizzed his security personnel, who fingered Maposa. When Maposa was interrogated, he allegedly confessed to selling it to Moyana.

Moyana said he had bought the equipment from Maposa, who claimed to be the owner. Police then arrested Maposa, who appeared in court on 31 July 2014 together with Moyana.^[6]

References