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Message: [QUOTE="Bombastus, post: 92008, member: 2178"] Zimbabwe introduced rolling power cuts of up to eight hours a day in May 2019 as electricity generation fell far below peak demand. Within weeks, outages grew much longer, and recording studios had to solve a problem that could not be fixed by moving a session to another afternoon. The effect on [B][URL='https://goldmidi.com/community/threads/zim-hip-hop-and-zimdancehall-music-2019-discussion-thread.4425/']Zimbabwean music production during 2019[/URL][/B] was practical before it was artistic. Computers, monitors, interfaces, microphones with powered preamps, and other studio equipment all depend on reliable electricity, so a blackout could turn booked recording time into dead time. By September, some studios were asking musicians to bring fuel for their own recording sessions. The arrangement shifted part of the electricity problem directly onto the artist, turning fuel from a general household headache into an extra condition attached to making a song. [HEADING=2]Eight-hour cuts quickly became much worse[/HEADING] The first national schedule in May was already disruptive, with cuts planned around morning and evening peak periods. Zimbabwe was producing roughly 969 megawatts against peak demand of about 2,100 megawatts when the rolling outages began, while reduced output at Kariba and ageing thermal generation at Hwange squeezed supply. Conditions deteriorated during June and July. Stage Two load shedding pushed some areas toward 16 or 17 hours without electricity, and reports later described outages reaching 18 or even 19 hours a day. A studio owner could no longer treat the blackout as a short interruption between otherwise normal sessions. Night work became one escape route for electricity-dependent businesses because power sometimes returned late in the evening. Recording at midnight, however, carries its own costs. Artists need transport, producers need to remain available, neighborhoods become harder to move through, and a session scheduled around an uncertain restoration time can still collapse if supply changes again. Power trouble was not new to the country's musicians. [B][URL='https://doi.org/10.1386/jams.2.2.209_1']Zimbabwe’s music economy under prolonged crisis[/URL][/B] documents earlier electricity cuts, fuel shortages, and the use of standby generators around live music, showing that 2019 intensified an existing weakness rather than creating one from scratch. [HEADING=2]Generators moved the bill instead of removing it[/HEADING] Chillspot Records gives the clearest studio-level example. DJ Fantan said daily power cuts forced the Mbare operation to buy a generator, creating an expense the studio had not previously carried. Electricity had disappeared from the wall socket, but the cost simply returned through equipment purchase, fuel, and the effort required to find it. Fuel itself was difficult to obtain. Fantan said service stations would not allow fuel purchases in cans, leaving the studio to obtain generator fuel on the black market at much higher prices. Keeping a session alive could therefore depend on access to two scarce things at once: electricity and petrol or diesel. A producer with more reliable grid access could gain business without changing anything about the music. DJ T-Man, whose Mount Zion studio operated in central Harare, said his business increased as artists moved toward him during the power crisis because his location experienced fewer cuts. Geography suddenly became part of studio competitiveness. Such movement exposes a less obvious cost of load shedding. A neighborhood studio could lose clients even after buying backup power because another room had cheaper or more dependable electricity. Producers were competing on beats, recording quality, relationships, and availability, but the grid had inserted itself into the contest. [HEADING=2]Partial relief did not erase the recording problem[/HEADING] Zimbabwe began receiving 400 megawatts from South Africa in August, allowing the power utility to move from Stage Two back to Stage One. The change made scheduled cuts more predictable around peak periods, but it did not restore uninterrupted electricity or erase the costs studios had already absorbed. A month later, reports were still describing recording studios asking musicians to supply fuel for sessions. The timing matters. National supply had improved from the worst period, yet the production economy was still passing backup-power costs toward the person arriving to record. For an established artist, another fuel expense might be irritating. For a newcomer paying for transport, studio time, production, artwork, and promotion, it could decide whether a session happened at all. No reliable evidence shows a single standard fuel charge across Zimbabwean studios, so pretending there was one would make the story tidier than the surviving record allows. The sharper point is simpler. Load shedding changed the price and location of recording without changing the nominal studio rate, because somebody still had to pay for electricity from somewhere. In 2019, the generator outside the room could matter almost as much as the equipment inside it. [/QUOTE]

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