One weekend after the other she started having gigs at every other spot many never thought she would perform at. Collaborations with unfamiliar folks were also starting to sprout.
But, just as we were adjusting to the new modus operandi, things took a major twist.
Hope Masike parted ways with her manager, Lucky Muzava.
A few months later in the same year of 2018, we discovered that she had parted ways with some of her key band members.
Soon after this, she vanished off the radar only to reappear last year with a brand new album as well as a band.
We always wondered what really caused the mbira princess to act the way she did.
The mystery is over now as Hope through a Facebook post on Tuesday opened up to her fans.
“In 2018 I hit a hard wall,” she wrote on her page.
“I broke off my engagement with my very hard-working management partner. With the breakup, gigs withered kunge muriwo weMuboora watemwa.”
In the midst of the split, Hope also reveals she had an unnamed ailment.
“On top of that, I was sick with a condition many women are suffering from in silence. Add the fact that I had long since finished my third album but was getting tired of knocking on record label doors.
“Many emails later I still had the album in my hands, no label, no management and I was tired! Physically tired, emotionally tired and any other whatever-call tired you can think of. Even financially I was strained as the engine had shut down.
So I closed shop!”
With things not working out on the music end, paying rent would soon be a challenge for Masike.
“I closed shop, moved out of an apartment I knew I soon wouldn’t be able to afford. I moved back to my family home, decided to go lick my wounds in silence, feed and hopefully find my feet again.
“I stayed in a lot. Fuel crisis ndobva yatangawo apa I was now staying a bit far. So I really stayed in. But because I stayed in, I ended up having ample time to do stuff I had been neglecting. I started reading a lot and through the reading, a long lost jewel emerged. Poetry!”
Despite all the challenges Hope has turned her situation into a testimony by coming up with her first book – a collection of her poems.
“I hit a hard wall
I bled from my forehead
I know you don’t see the scar
Because I am good at hiding scars,” narrates Hope Masike.
