He wrote:
One of the most prized possessions of an artist in whatever form or shade is the ability to express oneself artistically without undue internal or external pressures. When you have a horde of people descend on an artist to an extent of forcing him or her to denounce their own artistic creations, then such action cannot pass without comment.
The events of the past two days following Slapdee’s AFRIMMA nomination and the cyberbullying that he has been subjected to leading to him apologizing for having provided artistic services to the PF during the elections campaign have left me saddened.
As someone who has supported Slapdee’s career from the early days, I was proud to see his nomination for the prestigious award and I quickly voted for him and mobilized several friends to equally do the same as an act of patriotism and as a contribution towards the growth of the creative and arts sector.
It is therefore despicable that some Zambians can find joy and ecstasy in decampaigning Slapdee, voting for a rival artist from a foreign country, and forcing him to apologise for using his art in a way he saw it fit, both commercially and artistically.
When an artist is stripped off his artistic consciousness, his entire body of work becomes redundant and orphaned. Our artists should be allowed to enjoy absolute artistic freedom as long as it sits within the framework of what is legally permissible in the land.
Furthermore, those that have the mandate to provide leadership in this country should quickly implement measures that will reunite this country. The unnecessary debates from the so-called 2.8 and the 1.8 is unfortunate, irritating, and should not to tolerated. Zambia is bigger than these two groups of people put together.
Over 14 million Zambians did not want to have anything to do with the past elections and reducing every national debate to how the 2.8 and the 1.8 million people would feel is shallow-mindedness of the worst form. To be fair to Slapdee, he owed no one an apology.
As an artist, he should be at liberty to exercise his freedom of free thought and be allowed to express it in the best way he knows through art. I, therefore, wish to advise him to retract his apology and maintain his nomination for the award and remain the influential and incredible artist that he is.
