WINDHOEK- Oviritje fans may have followed closely the commotion following last year’s Namibia Annual Music Arwards (Namas), especially the announcement of the winners in the Oviritje category when the Pouua Concert Group coveted the award in the Best Oviritje category. Or was the actual winner Steward Vetira aka Ekuva No. 7?
Make your pick whatever it may because when the song Ekuva No.7 was composed Ekuva No.7 the artist was actually part of the Pouua Concert Group. However, a tussle ensued between the artist and the supremo of the group, Dolly Tjiveze as to whom the song belong and who should claim the Namas’ spoils.

How the claims were eventually resolved is abundantly clear from the new and eight release of the group titled Rakakotoka. This is in reference to the award which was initially claimed and grabbed by Ekuva No.7 but which Dolly eventually retrieved with the help of the authorities. Hence the title of the new CD, Rakakotoka, litteraly meaning it was eventually retrieved.

Having perhaps learnt the hard way, this time around Dolly decided to keep it in house going along on the new CD with trusted and loyal Pouua’s artists like Tjiuee Ruhumba, Undaka Rukambe, Zed Tjiuiju, Cisse Nÿerura and Remember Tjiseseta all singers of the group with the exception of the latter who is a singer-dancer. Certainly the Pouua Concert Group needs little introduction to most Oviritje fans let alone their fans with the song Ekuva No. 7 still reverberating loudly in the not too distant subconsciousness of many an Oviritje lovers.

In fact the song from their 2010 album, their seventh, titled Uzeraije tittled after one of the senior producers at the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC)’s Otjiherero Language Service, Berthold Tjazerua, still remains very much an all time favourite and remains to be seen whether anything from the new offering would unseat it.

Even Dolly himself is not quite  sure whether any of the songs would replace that song which earned them a Namas.
As much as he is confident that any of the songs from the new CD can repeat the 2011 feat of the song Ekuva No.7 at the Namas, he himself has much difficulty in choosing any one of them as he reckons any of the songs on the 15 track album can stand its own ground. However he cannot but bet his money on either the first track, Dronklap (Drunkard) or the title track, track ten, Rakakotoka.  Typical of many oviritje songs, songs on the CD has one or the other message with the message on Dronklap directed as a warning to fellow youths spending most of their youthful time in bars thus wasting a crucial time of their formative years.

Likewise reminiscent of the conversation reigning at one time between Kareke Henguva of Minora Number fame, aka Dr Sweet, and Groovy of Ongoro Nomundu, who recently earned his professorship,  on whether Dr Sweet  belonged to the same peer group, Dolly seems to be ultimately getting one of his own back on fellow Ekuva No.7 for trying to spoil his party by trying to appropriate the award to himself.

Rakakotoka was released last Wednesday and is available in most of the music outlets in Katutura at the Kahorere Music Shop at the Ovaherero Mall, Ritungee No. 2, also in Katutura as well as outsidecapital in Swakopmund at Young Ones, Walvis Bay from Benson Matundu and in Okaharara and Okamatapati from the Okamuinjo Bar-Resraurant for only N$100. Oviritje this Week does not wish to pre-empt your party regarding the new Pouua CD but wish to give you the benegit of the doubt to go and get your own copy and see for yourself before pronouncing itself on how it rates the new CD. But it has it on good authority that the CD is in the same mould as every other previous offering of the group.

If you pause for a moment and reflect on other songs of the group the album Hiwami Delilah (I am not Delilah), cannot but rekindle the group’s greatness.
And Dolly’s imprint all over it. Thus one cannot but expect only the best from the group’s latest offering especially in view of the fact that the new CD has a remix of Hiwami Delilah in the sixth track, Luv Story.

The name Pouua does not only epitomises the durability of the group’s music genre but very much also its popularity. Literally translated, Pouua means sweetness. In this case oviritje represents in the name of the group the sweetness of Namibian music. It has been so named cognisant that with independence, foreign genres dished out on the local market by mostly South African artists, and  what-have-you, seem to have given way to this genre, at least among a substantial section of the Namibian people if not the majority of it.
Next on Dolly’s agenda is the launch of the official launch of the CD scheduled for Saturday September 22 at Ritungee No. 2 in Katutura followed by road shows all over the Katutura and beyond in Botswana.  Dolly can be reached on cell phone number: 0814293325.

Meantime Tura Horns will be rocking Otjinene tonight and tomorrow night in the Otjinene Community Hall promising their fans a taste of three songs from their upcoming album. Tuesday also saw the beginning of the Ongoro Nomundu overseas trip competition in which the lucky fan will win an overseas trip to tour with the group when it will be touring Canada and New York later this year. Besides for the main prize there would weekly prizes including CDs, T-Shirts, DVDs. Those who wishes to be drawn for the prizes must sms the word: “TRIP” TO 41114 at a charge of N$5 an sms. The competition closes on November 12. Meantime Ongoro Nomundu features at the Okamatapati Agricultural Show this weekend before attending the tombstone unveiling of their late star, Eselle Tjikuramen in the village of Okahitua near Okakarara on Sunday. The group was yesterday also scheduled to donate some computers to the Omuhaturua Primary School in the village of Otjimanangombe in the Epukiro Constituency yesterday.