At the 2020 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Leading Women Summit in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal on March 6, DJ Zinhle shone in the spotlight, talking about her journey from rock-bottom to record-breaking. 



As the
woman responsible for South Africa’s My Name Is hit song
makes her way onto the stage, there is rapturous applause from a 1,000 strong
audience, gathered at Durban’s international convention center for the 2020 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Leading Women Summit.



Zinhle
Jiyane, popularly known as DJ Zinhle, walks up to the solo stage with her
four-year-old daughter, Kairo Forbes, who she calls one of her “biggest
achievements”.



South
Africa’s award-winning DJ and media personality presents an inspirational
speech during the summit’s #SPOTLIGHT session.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://www.forbeswomanafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Forbes-LWS2020KZN-3991-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-41543"/></figure>



“You’re lazy. You’re extremely lazy,” cites Zinhle as the words that shaped her into the woman she is today.



As a
child, Zinhle, who hails from KwaZulu-Natal, was heartbroken every time she was
called lazy.



“I knew I was a creative at heart. My lack of interest in limited career options and the mundane robotic task of drying the dishes didn’t really appeal to me. That’s the thing that got me the title ‘vila voco’ (meaning an extremely lazy person in English).”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Despite
that, Zinhle went on to pursue a BCom in marketing
at the University of Johannesburg. Graduating at the top of her class gave her the first dose of confidence.



“It was
possible. Although ‘vila voco’ might have been ringing in my head, at least I knew that it was possible to put in
the hard work and get
good results. That gave me all the confidence I need to
take over the world.
And that’s exactly what I did.”



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbeswomanafrica.com/woman/2020/03/11/lws2020kzn-the-forbes-woman-africa-2020-leading-women-summit-sets-the-bar-high-for-2021/">The FORBES WOMAN AFRICA 2020 Leading Women Summit Sets The Bar High For 2021</a>



Her new
found self-assurance propelled her to do more.



“In
2009, I launched Fuse Academy, the first and only DJ female academy in South Africa. Ten years later, the academy has
produced working DJs in
the industry that have contributed largely to the overall
entertainment
industry.”



After
eight years of resilience in the music industry, she finally scored her big break. 



“I had a song called My Name Is featuring Busiswa which became one of the biggest songs in 2012, not only in South Africa, but in most parts of Africa. This song was special to me because for the first time I knew what real success was. It was an exciting time for me as a woman”.



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Music
has always been the DJ’s first love, so while one hand was on the decks, she
tried the other hand at entrepreneurship.



“In 2013, I launched my jewelry business, Era By DJ Zinhle. Seven years later, my pride and joy is the first black female owned business to distribute through American Swiss.”



The hit
maker has been vocal about the importance of female empowerment. Her
involvement in a project seeking to do just this inspired her to put pen to
paper.



“In
2017, I joined a very important project called ‘It Takes A Village’ on SABC1 focusing on 11
young women who needed to deal with the demons
of their past. My role was to help them through this process, and help them find a better future for themselves. Spending time
with these incredible
ladies inspired me to write a book.”



Along with Nokubonga Mbanga, Zinhle published a book called Meeting Your Power that went on to become a best-seller.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/arts/2019/04/10/noami-campbell-has-big-plans-for-africa/">Naomi Campbell Has Big Plans For Africa</a>



Her new
hit Umlilo featuring Mvzzle &amp; Rethabile is her
latest achievement. The song, which means ‘fire’, was one of the biggest hits
to come out of South Africa in 2019.



“I’m very
proud of this song. Umlilo was out for
three months and had already reached platinum. It had over five million streams
in two months. Over and above that, it was crowned the crossover song by Metro
FM and many other radio stations. The last time Metro FM had a female-led song
as the crossover song of the year was in 1997 when Brenda Fassie took it with Vulindlela.”



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On March 6, Zinhle also won the 2020 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Entertainer Award.

Forbes LWS2020KZN-3918

DJ Zinhle: The ‘Lazy Kid’ Who Achieved Platinum Success

Topline:&nbsp;In order to continue global growth, ByteDance (parent company of the wildly popular social media app TikTok) will reportedly launch a&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.ft.com/content/ffaed23a-07dd-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e7dd" target="_blank">music streaming service</a>&nbsp;as soon as next month and is potentially exploring ways to&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-looking-at-ways-to-shake-off-its-ties-to-china-11574073001?mod=djem10point" target="_blank">remake its image</a>&nbsp;in advance of a rumored 2020 public offering.&nbsp;



<ul><li>The&nbsp;Financial Times&nbsp;reported Sunday that ByteDance is in talks to secure global licensing rights from Warner Music, Universal Music and Sony Music, the world’s largest record companies.&nbsp;</li><li>ByteDance’s still-unnamed music streaming service will reportedly cost less than $10 per month, undercutting monthly subscription fees charged by rivals Spotify and Apple, and will kick off with initial launch markets in Brazil, Indonesia and India; ByteDance declined to comment.</li><li>Those countries could be a tough sell⁠—according to a May 12&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/tiktok-owner-to-challenge-spotify-and-apple-with-music-service" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg report</a>, paid music subscriptions are mainly a Western phenomenon, while the most popular music apps in Asia are YouTube and Tencent’s QQ Music, both of which are free.</li><li>Meanwhile, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-looking-at-ways-to-shake-off-its-ties-to-china-11574073001?mod=djem10point" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Wall Street Journal</a>&nbsp;reported Monday that Beijing-based ByteDance, facing growing concern from U.S. lawmakers over its user-<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-launches-national-security-review-of-video-app-tiktok-11572641964?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">data storage</a>&nbsp;and content&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/9/20906971/tiktok-censorship-china-bytedance-musically-marco-rubio-senate-mnuchin-cfius-treasury" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">censorship</a>&nbsp;practices, is searching for ways to distance itself from its Chinese roots.</li><li>Potential rebranding moves include relocating its operations to Singapore and renaming TikTok, which the company denied, according to the&nbsp;WSJ.</li><li>Both the&nbsp;FT&nbsp;and&nbsp;WSJ&nbsp;reported ByteDance was aiming to IPO sometime next year, which ByteDance also denied to both outlets.&nbsp;</li></ul>



Big number:&nbsp;$78 billion. That was ByteDance’s last reported valuation, making it one of the&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/tiktok-owner-bytedances-first-half-revenue-better-than-expected-at-over-7-billion-sources.html" target="_blank">most valuable</a>&nbsp;startups in the world.



What to watch for:&nbsp;When ByteDance’s music streaming service actually launches. And if it moves the needle on paid music subscriptions in Asia. China’s Tencent has 800 million music users, but&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ffaed23a-07dd-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e7dd" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">less than 5%</a>&nbsp;of them pay for it.&nbsp;



Key background:&nbsp;TikTok made a name for itself as the first Chinese social network to achieve success in the U.S with over 100 million Americans as registered users. It surged in popularity this year as teens flock to the app to make lighthearted pranks, comedy sketches and lip-syncing videos. It’s also the third-most-downloaded app in Apple’s App Store, but it came at a price. According to the&nbsp;WSJ, ByteDance poured&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktoks-videos-are-goofy-its-strategy-to-dominate-social-media-is-serious-11561780861?mod=article_inline" target="_blank">$1 billion&nbsp;</a>into advertising and flooded rivals Facebook and Instagram with ads.&nbsp;



&#8211; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/">Lisette Voytko</a>

gettyimages-1073256686-594×594

TikTok Owner ByteDance Continues Expansion Efforts With Music Streaming And Possible Rebrand

The Country Music Awards are billed as Nashville’s biggest night, but this year’s event buried the genre’s most significant breakthrough of the past 12 months, offering up just one nomination for 20-year-old musician Lil Nas X, whose “Old Town Road” spent a record 19 weeks atop the singles charts. 



That run helped Lil Nas X notch a different honor, debuting on the&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;list of top-earning country acts this year with an estimated pretax income of $14 million. The Atlanta native claims the No. 18 spot thanks to the fiendishly catchy country-rap track he released through indie music service Amuse in December 2018. The song clocked 1.8 billion spins by summer despite being&nbsp;<a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/chart-beat/8530110/inside-the-old-town-road-charts-decision" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">booted</a>&nbsp;from the&nbsp;Billboard&nbsp;country charts. The snub—and a bevy of remixes—helped “Old Town Road” broaden the genre’s audience more than any track in recent memory.&nbsp;



“It was on viral charts in countries where no country song has ever positioned itself,”&nbsp;says Amuse cofounder Diego Farias.&nbsp;“Everything from Southeast Asian markets to eastern European markets. I mean, I’m talking about places that you don’t necessarily associate with cowboy hats and boots.”



Lil Nas X isn’t the only high earner to come up short at the awards ceremony: Luke Bryan claims the top spot on our list for the second consecutive year with $42.5 million but didn’t receive a single nomination. That’s mostly because the Georgia native, who favors baseball caps over cowboy hats, hasn’t put out a new studio album since 2017. Instead, he spent his time grossing more than $1 million per tour stop and serving as a judge on American Idol.



The genre-bending Zac Brown Band ranks second, pulling in $38.5 million on the strength of 50 live performances and a new album,&nbsp;The Owl, which peaked at No. 2 on the&nbsp;Billboard&nbsp;200 album charts. Other crossover acts on the list include Canadian songstress Shania Twain (No. 7 with $29 million) and hip-hop-tinged duo Florida Georgia Line (No. 8 with $26 million).



“Country’s more of a lifestyle,” the group’s cofounder Brian Kelley&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2015/01/05/country-fireball-inside-the-rise-of-florida-georgia-line/#10cdd1b75997" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told</a>&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;in 2015. “The music’s always going to evolve.”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“It was on viral charts in countries where no country song has ever positioned itself. Everything from Southeast Asian markets to eastern European markets. I mean, I’m talking about places that you don’t necessarily associate with cowboy hats and boots.”</blockquote>



Plenty of the CMAs’ stars did make our list, including performers Eric Church (No. 6, $30 million) and Miranda Lambert (No. 20, $13 million), as well as two of the hosts—Dolly Parton (No. 15, $17 million) and Carrie Underwood (No. 14, $16 million). A third host, Reba McEntire, narrowly missed the cut.



Overall, the top ten acts in country earned $311.5 million, up 2% from last year’s $304.5 million. Our list of the genre’s top earners measures estimated pretax earnings from June 1, 2018, through June 1, 2019. Fees for agents, managers and lawyers are not deducted. Figures are generated with the help of numbers from Nielsen Music, PollstarPro and interviews with industry insiders.



Although our rankings typically reflect country’s woeful lack of diversity at the top, this year’s list offers at least a glimmer of hope that things are changing. There are 6 women in the top 20—the least lopsided ratio in the seven years&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;has published the list—and Lil Nas X is both the first openly gay act and the first person of color to make it.



Though he declined to comment for this story through a representative, Lil Nas X is clearly taking his role as a trailblazer seriously, regardless of how much CMA hardware he takes home. As he <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48880817" target="_blank">told the BBC</a> earlier this year: “I feel like [I’m] opening doors for more people.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="960" height="390" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/country-top-earners.png" alt="" class="wp-image-42251" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/country-top-earners.png 960w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/country-top-earners-300x122.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/country-top-earners-600x244.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/country-top-earners-768x312.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" /></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">20. Miranda Lambert,&nbsp;$13 million (tie)</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">20. Lady Antebellum,&nbsp;$13 million (tie)</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">19. Rascal Flatts,&nbsp;$13.5 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">18. Lil Nas X,&nbsp;$14 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">17. Faith Hill,&nbsp;$15 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">16. Carrie Underwood,&nbsp;$16 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">15. Dolly Parton,&nbsp;$17 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">14. George Strait,&nbsp;$17.5 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">13. Tim McGraw,&nbsp;$18 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">12. Dierks Bentley,&nbsp;$20 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">11. Toby Keith,&nbsp;$21 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">10. Jason Aldean,&nbsp;$23.5 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">9. Garth Brooks,&nbsp;$24 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">8. Florida Georgia Line,&nbsp;$26 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">7. Shania Twain,&nbsp;$29 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">6. Eric Church,&nbsp;$30 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">5. Kenny Chesney,&nbsp;$31 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">4. Blake Shelton,&nbsp;$32 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">3. Keith Urban,&nbsp;$35 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">2. Zac Brown Band,&nbsp;$38.5 million</h3>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">1. Luke Bryan,&nbsp;$42.5 million</h3>



&#8211; Zack O&#8217;Malley Greenburg

country musicians

Highest-Paid Country Acts 2019: Lil Nas X Debuts; Luke Bryan Tops List

Creators and consumers of music seek African online music
platforms even as global entities and record labels hesitate to fully commit on
the continent.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Africa is a continent of over a billion people, with a
young, increasingly tech-savvy population that has growing spending power and a
desire to find new ways of accessing a wider range of content. And, at a
sociocultural level, music plays a huge role in Africa.



A ripe environment for major global players in the music
industry, you would think, but things have been rather quiet around digital
music on the continent. 



Spotify only launched in South Africa last year, and its
only other African markets are Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. Apple Music
is still only available in the same handful of African countries as at the time
of its launch. 



Where these companies have, so far, looked on, others have
filled the gap. Chinese company Boomplay, founded in 2015, through a joint
venture between phone manufacturer Transsion and consumer apps firm NetEase,
now has 42 million users across multiple markets on the continent, and recently
secured $20 million in funding to break into more countries.



Locally and regionally focused platforms are also seeing
traction. Key among them is the Nairobi-based Mdundo, which has more than 3.5
million monthly active users in countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda,
Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria. 



The company works with 50,000 musicians across Africa and
has signed a licensing deal with Warner Music Group.



The company’s CEO Martin Nielsen says the sector is seeing
strong progress, with artists flooding to online platforms to distribute their
music and labels paying more attention to the continent.



“We’re experiencing an increasing interest in Africa and the
music industry, both from commercial partners, record labels, music
distributors and global music services. This is a very positive development,
Africa is next in line,” he says.



The growth of platforms like Mdundo, and the launch of new
ones, has benefits for both creators and consumers of music on the continent.
For artists, they provide new ways of getting their music out there. 



Dumisani Kapanga is founder of the Malawi-based streaming
platform Mvelani, which has almost 100,000 songs in its catalogue and claims to
have at least 40,000 users each day. He says services like his have broken down
barriers to entry for artists.



“It’s now easier than ever for musicians to put out music to
their fans without relying on record labels to do so. Within minutes an artist
can have their music on some of the biggest platforms out there. We are
providing the means for artists to be heard easily, without the need for
expensive middle men,” Kapanga says. 



For consumers, it is ever easier to access music new and
old, in a variety of different ways. Damola Taiwo, co-founder of Nigeria-based
music downloads platform MyMusic.com.ng, says download platforms such as his
own remain the most popular due to factors such as accessibility and
affordability, but sees a future in Spotify-style streaming services in Africa.



“The download services seem to still be the preferred
method, where individual tracks are downloaded on devices and permanently
owned. This is probably due to the cost and quality of internet access on the
continent,” he says.



“However, there are other more structured platforms that
also exist where listeners consume music. Some of them are streaming services
similar to Spotify and Apple Music while others are download services, or a
mixture of both.”



What business model to pursue, and how to monetize, are key
challenges faced by local music platforms, and the fact that there are, as yet,
no clear answers might account for the wariness of the likes of Spotify and
Apple Music to bet big on Africa. Taiwo says another key issue is the lack of
major record labels on the continent. 



“Most artists will fall under the ‘indie’ bracket, and even
the ones that have record labels are more like a one-man business with a
maximum of three artists. This makes licencing difficult as there are too many
entities to talk to,” he says.



The diversity of what is loosely referred to as the “African
consumer”, but is, in fact, a huge mass of people with differing tastes and
preferences, also poses a problem for music platforms. Nielsen says there is a
rapidly growing middle class that demands the same service that global music
services offer, yet they are still very data-cost conscious. 



“Plus many of the smart devices have limited storage, so we
tailor-make our solution to their needs. In addition to that, we have a
mass-market segment on our service with low-end smartphone devices that we see
a huge potential in with simpler music offerings,” he says.

music

African Music Platforms Soar As Spotify And Apple Snooze

The South African musician on how he finds culture and creative inspiration in the West African country.

Last summer, South African rapper and songwriter Senzo Vilakazi, who was in FORBES AFRICA’s Under 30 list in 2018, and better known by his stage name Kwesta, swapped his microphone for a notebook and pen 10,000 kilometers from his country of birth.
He was in Senegal on business, but recorded his thoughts in prose and memory.
“Then I just ended up staying for a couple of days because of the richness of the place,” says Kwesta.
He was captivated by the history of the West African country, and Gorée, a small island located away from the main harbor of Dakar, where slaves used to pass on their way to America.
Kwesta, who has traveled the world and performed in numerous African countries, was astounded by how much of its culture the island had managed to preserve years after slavery was abolished.
<blockquote>“I was really in love with how they have preserved their past. It is not like any other place that I have been to,” he says.</blockquote>
As soon as he landed, he was struck by the history of the island.
“It has a certain warmth; as soon as you go into it, it is almost certain that you can feel the lives that were lost there. It is a very difficult space to describe, a very inspirational and a very creative space. The people there are [so much into] culture preservation it is crazy,” says Kwesta.
On his short break, he went on a cruise ship, and visited the famous fort known as Slave House, which even former South African president Nelson Mandela once visited. The fort housed African slaves en route to the west.
“Six million slaves died there and over 20 million were shipped through the island,” says Kwesta on the facts gleaned from his trip.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/travel/2018/07/10/executive-travel-ola-orekunrins-india/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Executive travel: Ola Orekunrin’s India</a>
The imagery of slavery has stayed with him.
“They are just so proud [citizens]! They try to teach you about their culture. That is what I found quite interesting compared to South Africans because people here are very much westernised. I wish I could be able to bring back that pride and culture [they have],” observes Kwesta.
“Even as rappers, I always feel like we are trying to imitate the American style of rapping,” he says.
He also noticed the stark contrast of the landscape – the hospitality sector on one side and shanty towns on the other.
“When I was in my hotel, I could basically see the richness of their vegetation and on the other end, I could see their low-cost houses, which was such a weird thing to observe, because you could see the difference in the economies.”
Who would have thought the rapper’s favorite travel destination would be right here in Africa.

Youth Day Celebration concert in South Africa

Executive Travel: Kwesta’s Senegal

What does the latest Grammy award mean to you?
It means so much. The American music industry is the biggest and most important in the world. For them to vote our album Shaka Zulu Revisited the Best World Music Album of 2017, making it our fifth Grammy award, says to us that we&#8217;re still doing it right. We&#8217;re still at the top of what we do. Sometimes people ask if winning another Grammy is boring. What? Our group has been doing what we do for over 50 years. So many groups come and go, never to be heard from again. We don&#8217;t want to be that type of group. We plan to be around for decades more.
How do you continue to produce timeless music?
The first thing is to love what you do. We have never lost the love of what we sing. Then, we know it needs to be special. We have this opportunity to share our singing with the world. We must make the recordings important and beautiful. We know we represent our country of South Africa. Every album is like the Olympics for us. We want to make our country proud.
What is the message behind your music? 
Peace, love and harmony. Our message has never changed. We want to bring people together through music. We remember that 20 years ago we were asked to perform in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the first time. That place was still having terrible problems. We thought ‘hey, our country had terrible problems but we changed. We started to respect each other and work together. Sure, it&#8217;s not perfect yet but it&#8217;s getting there’. We thought it was important to sing for people in Belfast to show them that peace and love were the true way to live together. This is what our music is for.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2015/03/01/glittering-prizes-soft-shuffle-feet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Glittering Prizes To The Soft Shuffle Of Feet</a>
What was the reason behind honoring founding member Joseph Shabalala with Shaka Zulu Revisited?
Joseph taught us everything we know and Ladysmith Black Mambazo continues to be a success because of him. When he retired in 2014 he handed the group to his four sons, who originally joined the group in 1993. He said: &#8220;Boys, it is in your hands now. Take care of it and keep the respect.&#8221; Since 2017 was the 30th Anniversary of the great Shaka Zulu album, we wanted to re-record it to honor what Joseph has accomplished over the past 30 years&#8230; We care for each other and everyone&#8217;s family. We also fully believe in our mission of spreading peace and love through music.
You have maintained a unique African sound without compromise. How?
It&#8217;s who we are. It&#8217;s what Joseph Shabalala wanted his group to be. Staying true to culture; to history; to the origins of this music. We don&#8217;t change with the times, incorporate new styles. Sure, we like to work with other people and integrate our style of singing with others, however, when it comes to our music, we stay true to our roots.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2018/03/02/forbes-five-hip-hops-wealthiest-artists-2018/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Forbes Five: Hip-Hop&#8217;s Wealthiest Artists 2018</a>
What does the future look like for Ladysmith Black Mambazo?
More albums, more concert touring, more singing for peace, love and harmony and dare we say it, more Grammy awards!
Do you believe musicians can change the world with music?
Absolutely, music knows no boundaries, nor borders. Music brings people together. Music heals, music helps. Music flows through all societies and links us as one world.

7 Questions With… Ladysmith Black Mambazo

After conquering Zimbabwe’s music scene and achieving nearly all his goals at home, contemporary musician, Jah Prayzah (real name Mukudzei Mukombe) has set his sights on the rest of Africa, where other stars, such as Diamond Platnumz, Cassper Nyovest and Davido, are making waves.
For Jah Prayzah, music is a business and he has set up his own record label, Military Touch Movement, which, along with himself, has signed the artists Andy Muridzo, Tahle Wedzinza, Nutty O and EX-Q.
“I have always dreamed of doing my work in a professional manner. I can’t treat my music as a tuck-shop business where we meet in the street and someone pays,” he says.
Although he could not reveal details, Jah Prayzah says he is working on something to invest in outside music just in case he wakes up one day “without a voice”.
He is known for wearing army uniform and his fans call him the Shona name ‘Musoja’, the soldier in English. Aptly, he says he handles his music with military precision, viewing himself as a commander of the troops of instrumentalists, producers and fellow artists under his stable.
“I always wanted to be a soldier and at one time I applied and they invited me for training but that was when I started to do shows so I could not carry on with my dream to be in the military,” he says.
In 2016, Jah Prayzah was awarded the MTV Africa Music Awards in the Listeners Choice category and says he was overcome with joy.
“For the first time in my adult life, I felt like crying,” he says.
In 2017, he was nominated for the Best African Artist Award at the South African Music Awards alongside fellow Zimbabwean artist, Oliver Mtukudzi. Both lost out to Nigerian musician Patoranking.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/09/08/pretty-yende-wealth-music-gives-priceless/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Pretty Yende: The Wealth Music Gives Me Is Priceless</a>
Back home, Jah Prayzah has amassed more than 20 awards, such as the Zimbabwe Music Awards and the prestigious National Arts and Merit Awards. The awards and growing airplay on music channel Trace Africa have boosted his confidence to spread his music to other countries.
“In Zimbabwe I have tried and I have achieved everything I wanted to. Right now I want to spread my music to every corner of Africa and then to every corner of the world. That’s why here and there, there is a change in sound; I want to make music that cuts across most African countries,” he says.
In Africa he has been well received after he performed at the Bushfire Festival in Swaziland earlier this year. In Mozambique, he was shocked “to see that there are people who support me” to such lengths. He has also been to Tanzania where he has recorded duets with Diamond Platnumz and Harmonize.
Jah Prayzah has more than 177,000 likes on his Facebook fan page and says almost half of his social media followers are from Tanzania owing to the popularity gained on the back of his duet with Diamond Platnumz.
He has also collaborated with Mafikizolo on the song Sendekera and the artists have a second song which is yet to be released. Jah Prayzah has also worked with Botswana’s Vee Mampeezy, Namibia’s Boss Madam and Uganda’s Eddy Kenzo.
But, it is not always easy to get hold of Africa’s top artists and convince them to work together.
“It is more difficult to get hold of other African artists when you are still pushing your name. I wanted to collaborate with them a long time back,” says Jah Prayzah.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/09/25/money-witchcraft-beer-metal-soweto/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Money, Witchcraft And Beer &#8211; This Is Metal From Soweto</a>
This has changed since he won awards got good reviews back home. He says this makes it easier for him to sit down with other African artists and discuss music business.
A recent collaboration with Davido has seen Jah Prayzah get airplay across the continent. But does it come at a cost and do Africa’s top artists require a payment for collaborations?
“With Davido, Diamond Platnumz and Mafikizolo, we did not pay any money. The only money we use is for work such as videos. It’s all about networking and building relationships,” he says.
The heavy workload can take its toll. He recalls when he had to perform at three shows on the same day as his sister’s wedding and he almost lost his eyesight.
“At one of the shows there was a light and we came back and I was asking my guys why there is smoke here and they laughed at me. Even driving home it was cloudy,” he says.
“The following day my eyesight became problematic as the day progressed and I partially lost my eyesight. [It was so bad] that I could not clearly identify people. I then went to see my doctor and he helped me and said it’s because of the lighting. I have never been so set aback in my life.”
Jah Prayzah says balancing performances, his heavy travel schedule, collaborations and family is “super hectic” but he is always guided by his ethos of hard work and his refusal to limit his dreams.
“I always aim higher, but sometimes it’s painful when I have to travel a lot and also balance family. I still want more awards.”
As we conclude the interview, he smiles and says it’s not easy to build an African music brand. He’s giving it his best shot and believes he is on the right path, especially when he sees the growing support across borders.
At home, fans demand their unique Zimbabwean sound while the rest of Africa has its own beat. With his most recent album, Kutonga Kwaro, he had to compromise between the different sounds.
It’s all part of building a legacy across the continent – after all, he’s not selling sweets in a small shop. &#8211; Written by Tawanda Karombo

Jah Prayzah: My Music Is Not A Tuck-Shop Business

Before regularly scoring six-figure nightly fees spinning thumpy electronic tunes, Zedd got his start playing classical music at age 4. He learned how to plan performances with meticulous detail, an ability that&#8217;s obvious in his carefully choreographed shows today, which feature less of the freewheeling song selection used by most popular DJs. &#8220;I see myself as an artist who presents a show,&#8221; says Zedd, who earned $19 million this year and $85 million over the past five. &#8220;It&#8217;s almost like when you go to the movies. You&#8217;re not going to buy your ticket and see a movie and, if you don&#8217;t like it, expect the movie to change in real time.&#8221;
Zedd has produced hits for Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga and released solo smashes like last year&#8217;s multiplatinum &#8220;Stay&#8221;- while becoming the anti-DJ of the DJ universe. To distinguish himself from competitors, he created a graphics-heavy live show that feels like watching a videogame projected onto a movie screen with a custom visual for each song. A cable runs from his computer to the front of the house, where a team of technicians makes sure everything syncs up, including the program&#8217;s lasers and pyrotechnics. &#8220;It used to be really cheap to make a show &#8211; I used to be able to keep all the money,&#8221; Zedd recalls. &#8220;Now the shows cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.&#8221;
As costs continue to escalate in a musical arms race, Zedd is flirting with the idea of reinventing the DJ model again by turning to something with which he&#8217;s very familiar: live instrumentation. &#8220;I think I will one day go unplugged.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_34829" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34829" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34829" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Zedd-1-200x300.jpg" alt="Zedd DJ" width="300" height="450" />Zedd: He&#8217;s earned $85 million over the past five years at the height of the EDM boom. Just don&#8217;t call him a DJ (Photo by Jamel Toppin)</div>
Forbes senior editor Zack O&#8217;Malley Greenburg sat down with Zedd at the 30 Under 30 Summit in October. Here&#8217;s the interview for the first time, with a few light edits for clarity and brevity.
ZOG: The first time I interviewed you, about four years ago, you said, &#8220;You know, I don&#8217;t want to say I&#8217;ll be a producer, and a DJ, for the rest of my life. I can totally see myself being in another band in five years, if that&#8217;s what my heart and soul wants to do. If that&#8217;s what will make me happy, I&#8217;m totally happy just to not DJ anymore.&#8221; So, it&#8217;s been almost five years, how are you feeling about that? Are you going to go unplugged? Or are you going to do the current thing a little while longer?
Zedd: I think I will one day go unplugged or change my show somehow. Or my show form, I&#8217;ll say that. Currently I am still DJing, yet I think I have a way more dramatic show, and a much for dynamic show than I&#8217;ve ever had, that involves a lot of planning&#8230; the nature of the DJ is to go up there, and play a song, look at the crowd, feel it out, and then play whatever you think people want to hear. That&#8217;s very difficult for me, because I see myself as a musician in the first place, and I [challenge you to] name any artist who&#8217;d want to think they&#8217;d go on stage, and look at the crowd, and say, &#8220;Maybe let&#8217;s play this song. I don&#8217;t think people will like that one.&#8221; You present the show, you prepare, you rehearse for weeks, and then this is what you present to the crowd. And there&#8217;s always a section that is staying flexible to mix stuff up, if you have to, or if you want to. But I would say the majority of my set is pre-planned; it&#8217;s a show that I want to present. I want people to see something that I spent a lot of time working on.
ZOG: And the live element in your show, it&#8217;s obviously the core of the electronic music experience. But also streaming being the way the music gets out, the economics have changed a ton, even in the last few years. Talk a little bit about that, and how it&#8217;s starting to change for artists.
Zedd: I think that streaming became a huge part of every musician&#8217;s career. Even for, or especially for, unsigned artists. I have a friend who is a singer, and she just makes music at home and she puts it up on SoundCloud, and puts it up on Spotify, and she makes a really decent living off of people streaming her music. I think there&#8217;s a lot of artists who actually make more money now, streaming their music, than they did selling their music prior. And I was one of those people who was really scared of that whole streaming world, because you see all these numbers, and I don&#8217;t know what exactly the numbers [are], but it&#8217;s a fraction of a cent that you make per stream. And then in your mind it&#8217;s, &#8220;Oh my God, people are going to listen to my song once, and then that&#8217;s all I&#8217;m going to get.&#8221; But the reality is, that you can have millions of people stream your song, or songs, every single day. You can have 10 million streams on your album daily. Over a really long time that becomes a lot of money. So, I think that the streaming section that sounded so scary to me, and probably many others, is actually a really good thing.
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ZOG: Before, artists would put out new albums so that they could have new stuff to put in the concerts. But maybe [it will soon] flip back so that you do concerts just to raise awareness about the new music?
Zedd: Yeah, I mean, I think the music industry is changing really fast. So it&#8217;s hard to predict where things are going to go. I know a lot of artists don&#8217;t like touring. They do not like not having any sleep every day, being stressed every day. They like being at home, waking up, doing their thing, and then making music whenever they want to. There is much less of a schedule to create music than being on tour, and having to open the doors on time, and having a curfew.
And there&#8217;s artists that are the exact opposite, they hate being at home. And they feel frustrated, and they want to get out there and play music. I think that if anything, the streaming world may open the door for people who don&#8217;t want to tour, to actually not have to tour. There&#8217;s a great living you can make off of being creative and not having a schedule at all. And working when you want to work, and putting up music the next day. There use to be two or three months in the lead time to when you could release an album. And here you can just release your music the next day, if you want to.
ZOG: Tell me a little bit about your live show, what goes into it. I think a lot of people have a preconceived notion about what that entails.
Zedd: So my live show is not a DJ show at all. My platform is Djing, and I can change my music, and my selection of songs anytime. But essentially, what&#8217;s most important for me is for the crowd to go home and think that was an incredible experience. And to think that they can&#8217;t get that same experience from anybody else. And that involves, of course, the music choice, but also the visuals you see: the lights you see, the lasers, the special effects, and that&#8217;s all very choreographed. And that&#8217;s still all made live. So the way we do it is I DJ, and then there&#8217;s a cable running from my computer to the front of the house, with three screens so everybody is always aware of what I am playing, if I decide to change something last minute. Every song that I&#8217;ve ever played has a specific visual that goes with the song. And my team can, in real time, see what I am about to play, and adjust and create the visuals, and the lighting looks, and the colors, that we rehearsed for each song. Sometimes I play a song that has a visual that is also assigned to another song, then they can decide to, on the spot, change it, or whatever fits that moment. So, we essentially have a show that looks really rehearsed, and almost pre-made. Yet I have the flexibility to change anything, at any point in time.
ZOG: It&#8217;s more like a theater production than a movie, although you said it could be like a movie in some ways too.
Zedd: Yeah &#8230; it&#8217;s almost like when you go to the movies. You&#8217;re not going to buy your ticket and see a movie and if you don&#8217;t like it, you expect the movie to change in real time. That&#8217;s kind of how I see it. I am not going to go on stage, and look at the people, and if someone&#8217;s unhappy I&#8217;m going to change the music for that person. I spend way too much time &#8230; creating a theatrical show, to then adjust it on the spot, and make it something that&#8217;s not perfect. In my mind, this is what I want to present as an artist, and if people see me on tour, this is what they&#8217;re going to get. And if I, on the fly, decide to change something, that becomes part of the show. &#8230; Every moment is really planned out, every single light is planned out. So when people go to the show they should expect a real experience, not just me deciding on the fly what song I want to play.
ZOG: What sort of instance would cause you to change something on the fly?
Zedd: Well, for example, a few days ago I didn&#8217;t play one song, and what made me do that was just a mistake. I just forgot that I didn&#8217;t play that song. I thought I had already queued that song up, but I didn&#8217;t. And I was already mixed into another key &#8230; I&#8217;m trying to be very musical about the song choices I make, and I can&#8217;t just mix keys back and forth all the time, because that just doesn&#8217;t feel musical to me. So at that point, I was too far ahead. And I didn&#8217;t have any more songs that could lead into the key of that song that I missed. So I just left it out for the entire show.
What else could happen is that one part of my production is not working. There&#8217;s certain songs that &#8230; are not particularly exciting songs just by themselves, and I would never listen to them, because they&#8217;re not musical at all. But they give you the sense of lasers. Literally. You hear it and you think of something space flavored &#8230; and if we don&#8217;t have those lasers working, I&#8217;m not going to play that song, because it&#8217;s all senses that come together into one experience.
It&#8217;s not just about what you hear, but it&#8217;s the combination of what you see, and what you hear. And if you hear that sound of lasers, and then you see that right over you, and you feel like you can touch it, that&#8217;s the experience I want people to experience, and not just a song by itself. So, there&#8217;s a lot of things that can go wrong that would make me not play a certain song.
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ZOG: What are some things that you do in your live set that nobody else does at all?
Zedd: I think the preparation that goes into my sets is something that most DJs are embarrassed of. And I&#8217;ve had a conversation with an amazing DJ, one of the best DJs in that sense, he could go up there and play six hours. I don&#8217;t even have enough music to play six hours. I could never do that. Neither do I think there are six hours of incredible music that I&#8217;d want to play. But, he was under the impression that it&#8217;s not real DJ&#8217;ing if you go up there and you already have something prepared, if you have a list that you plan on playing. To me, that may be true for a DJ. But I just don&#8217;t consider myself a DJ. I see myself an artist who presents a show. So, to me there is nothing embarrassing about being perfectly prepared in knowing exactly what you&#8217;re about to do, but I think that most DJs have an issue with that. &#8230; A lot of people back five, six years ago thought, &#8220;You don&#8217;t even use headphones; so you&#8217;re not a real DJ.&#8221; [I say], &#8220;Yeah maybe?&#8221; I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s a need to use headphones if you&#8217;re well prepared.
ZOG: You don&#8217;t always use headphones, but you have your own headphone line. Tell me a little about that.
Zedd: Yeah. So my headphone line is essentially a headphone that is for everyday use. I wanted it to look nice, because a lot of headphones that look great, don&#8217;t sound great. So, in Tokyo I met with the people who make the headphones, and they had created a version of a Transformers type headphone &#8230; I don&#8217;t know how to make the parts, so it was dozens of parts, and you essentially build it as you go, and then you put on the headphone, and it looked terrible, but it sounded incredible. So I asked them, &#8220;Why don&#8217;t we both come together and make a headphone that looks incredible but also sounds incredible?&#8221; And so we started the process, and it was far over a year from the first drawings, to the first renderings, to the first design, then to changing the shape. And I just wanted everyone to have a headphone that is really pretty, and good-looking, and sounds incredible, but most importantly is really comfortable to wear for a long period of time, because as somebody who sometimes has to mix something on the road, it was important for me to have a tool that I can trust. So some headphones that I know: this is exactly what I make my music like in the studios, so this is what it sounds like on the road. And just to have that connection was really important for me.
ZOG: What&#8217;s next for you?
Zedd: What&#8217;s next for me is I just started my tour, so I will be touring for a while. And I am, for the first time, trying out to not spend two years working on one single album and then put it out at the same time. But I essentially want to finish a song. I will try to release it pretty quickly. And I started that with &#8220;Stay,&#8221; that was the first time I finished a song essentially, and put it out right away &#8230; it sounded fresh. I don&#8217;t know how fresh &#8220;Stay&#8221; would have sounded if I released it two years from now, when the rest of my album is done. I want to try that for a little while. Then next year I will probably take some time and make an album, and I don&#8217;t know what that will mean yet and whether that will be a concept album, but I&#8217;m starting to want to make one again.
ZOG: Have you seen costs go up dramatically for your show? What are some of the things that have changed over time, in that regard?
Zedd: Yeah, I mean, I remember my first tour I ever played as a DJ was with Skrillex, and back then, my production, as an opening act, was just a folding table. And between me and the next DJ, who was Porter Robinson, I looped the song, and he came on stage, and while the song was looping, we switched tables into his laptop, and then I was like, &#8220;Thanks, guys!&#8221; And I&#8217;d walk off the stage and he&#8217;d start. That is not the thing anymore today. Everything is really professional. From the change over music, from what you hear and see, between each DJ, to the cost you spend on a show. I mean it used to be really cheap to make a show, I used to be able to keep all the money, and now the shows cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, just to put on one show, because the special effects are expensive, and you have to get all these licenses &#8230; the expenses have gone up dramatically.

Zedd – The $85 Million Classically Trained DJ

It’s a midweek afternoon and I meet up with an old friend in Dobsonville, Soweto. We used to go to hip-hop shows together. Now Trevor ‘Paranoia’ Macupe is a black man who pounds out white music. He’s a member of a black metal band, from Soweto, the urban township to the south of Johannesburg; his music is kicking down barriers.
Black metal is fast, with high-pitched piercing vocals and distorted guitars. It grabs you by the gut. The artists often appear on stage with painted faces, looking like corpses; a dark look for black metal.
The members of this metal band have taken the aggressive guitar music from the northern hemisphere and made it their own.
<div id="attachment_33625" style="width: 325px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33625" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-33625" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-729-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="473" />Trevor ‘Paranoia’ Macupe playing guitar at Arcade Empire. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
The five musicians met through skateboarding and hip-hop and now they spill black metal into the African night.
Macupe is the guitarist; Thapelo ‘Bellicose’ Mokoena, the bassist; Modiba ‘Belgaroth’ Rabothata, the drummer; Siyabonga ‘Thronum’ Mngadi is the other guitarist. Dreadlocked Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene, the vocalist, lives up to his name on stage. They are known as Demogoroth Satanum and they are the first all-black, black metal band to come out of South Africa. They have been playing together since 2012.
The band’s technical skills have earned them fans in faraway places like Botswana and Germany. They didn’t have money, nor equipment, nor resources, to go to music school but they practised hard and taught themselves to rock hard.
“Upon discovering it, we didn’t understand it; we dived into it and upon exploring it we found the sound that we are known for today,” says Mngadi.
They acquired the taste while skateboarding and playing video games, with rock ‘n’ roll and punk music playing in the background.
The band usually meet at Mngadi’s room, in Zola, Soweto, sometimes to listen to what they have produced or to write songs before they head out to a community center to rehearse. Passers-by are stunned when they hear metal churning out in a place where township music is the beat of the streets.
“Not just our families, but the whole black community had a very negative view on what we&#8217;re doing because it’s not in the Sowetan comfort zone. They would say it&#8217;s witchcraft or Satanism with the corpse paint and the loud music and screaming,” says Kunene.
<div id="attachment_33626" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33626" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-33626" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-596-e1506084307148-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="332" />A fan takes a photo of Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Kunene says that the younger generation accuse them of playing “white-boy music” and say they are trying to be white people. The older generation just say it&#8217;s witchcraft.
Mokoena had a bad experience while sitting on a train bound for Johannesburg. He was wearing a black metal t-shirt with dark imagery and there was a gentleman sitting in front of him and staring.
“He eventually had the courage to say something. The first thing he said was that I am ‘evil and Illuminati, you’re the one poisoning our children’. He attacked me and didn’t get to know my name. I let him vent because it was a scary situation because of mob justice. If half the train thinks he’s right, I would have got my ass kicked for wearing a metal t-shirt. I didn’t want to engage him in case I incite a violent situation,” he says.
On August 4, the band was in a safer place. The gig was in Pretoria, the capital city of South Africa, about a 91-kilometer drive from Soweto – in cultural terms, it could have been on Mars – at a pub called Arcade Empire peopled by whites. On the night, the only black people there were the members of the bands, the waiters and myself. Nothing unusual for Demogoroth Satanum.
<div id="attachment_33629" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33629" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-33629" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-743-e1506085087815-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Trevor &#8216;Paranoia&#8217; Macupe (left) and Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene thank the crowd for its support. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Four bands are playing on the night; Demogoroth Satanum is the only one playing black metal. An ear splitting kerrang from the lead guitar announces them on stage with a swagger.
“This song is made out to two girls who tried to make it to hell but, unfortunately, they made it to heaven,” says Kunene before one of their numbers.
The audience cheers and the mosh pit – an area on the dancefloor where fans jump into each other as the aggressive music plays – comes to life more and more with every song. Before the song had finished I had to be careful with the camera; it was raining beer as the crowd jumped with bottles in their hands.
“As the mosh pit is happening and the crowd is going crazy, I know we’re doing the right thing,” says Kunene.
<div id="attachment_33627" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33627" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-33627" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-732-e1506084625760-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Fans show their appreciation for Demogoroth Santanum by making devil horns with their hands &#8211; a traditional metal symbol. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
The last song ends and the lights go up. It was like the calm after the storm. The guys had just performed yet another show for free and didn’t mind because they love the music.
The band wants to play more international shows, especially in Europe, where metal is popular.
Demogoroth Satanum sustain themselves with day jobs. Mngadi works as a retention agent, Kunene trades online, Rabothatha recently left his job as call center agent to focus on the music, and Macupe freelances shooting and directing videos. When he is not playing the bass, Mokoena does street cleaning and sweeps bus stops.
“Metal is not one of those genres you’d get into for the money, because you going be sorely disappointed. Trust me, you’re not going to <a href="https://luckycasino.co.za/how-to-make-money-in-south-africa-online-for-free/" style="text-decoration: none; color: inherit;">make money for free</a>, not in this country,” says Macupe.
Just as well. With all the negative commentary from the township and stereotypes about the genre, the boys have turned their most unlikely fans; their families, into their greatest supporters. Their long-term aim is to get more black people into the mosh pit.
<div id="attachment_33630" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33630" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-33630" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-700-e1506085238591-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>

Money, Witchcraft And Beer – This Is Metal From Soweto

In Tanzania, music is played everywhere: on crowded, colorful streets, in dala dalas (minibus taxis), and in roadside bars, which serve grilled corn and roasted pistachios. Tanzanians even walk as if they are dancing.
This passion for music comes from the tribes. In this country, with a population of 50 million people, there are more than 120 of them and all of them have different traditional instruments, tunes, and songs. In the cosmopolitan Dar es Salaam, you can hear almost all of them: from the melodies played on the ilimba, an instrument of the Gogo tribe from central Tanzania, to taarab music, akin to sung poetry, and popular in Zanzibar.
Yet the younger generation prefers bongo flava, a local version of hip hop. And the local stars are more and more inspired by their American idols; they imitate their music, gestures and clothing style. No wonder that older musicians fear that, in a few decades, Tanzanians may no longer be able to make traditional instruments or even play on them.
<div id="attachment_32641" style="width: 435px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32641" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-32641" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Music-in-Tanzania_Myriam-Meloni_08-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="425" height="283" />Hilary More, lead singer of the Cocodo band from dar es Salaam (Photo by Myriam Meloni)</div>
In colonial times, traditional music and dancing encouraged resistance. Today, artists are encouraging resistance against growing western influences to save their rich tradition.
Seventy-two-year-old Warema Chacha is a well-known litungu player, a stringed instrument of the Kurya tribe from north-western Tanzania. The older he gets, the more determined he is to pass on his knowledge and love for music to younger generations.
<blockquote>&#8220;I often tell young people that it&#8217;s important to value your own culture, because in this way you can know yourself better. You won&#8217;t know it by playing bongo flava,&#8221; he says at his house in Bagamoyo, 60 kilometers from Dar es Salaam.</blockquote>
&#8220;Many times when you don&#8217;t appreciate your own things they can disappear. If someone comes to me, I can help and teach him to play the instrument, even making him one for free,&#8221; he adds showing a self-made litungu.
<div id="attachment_32642" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32642" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-32642" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Music-in-Tanzania_Myriam-Meloni_10-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />An ilimba, a traditional instrument of the Gogo tribe from Tanzania. The Zawose family use it during performances. (Photo by Myriam Meloni)</div>
He has already encouraged his grandson Ally, who plays on the African drums in a popular band Ze Spirits, to also take litungu lessons.
&#8220;The litungu is not well known and we are the only ones who can save it from disappearing and introduce it to the world because we are close to Chacha, who knows everything about this instrument,&#8221; says 21-year-old Sajaly Sharif, Ally&#8217;s friend from the band that plays afro-fusion, a mix of traditional and modern music. “This can also be a good marketing strategy for us. Like most bands, we also play the guitar, but if you go to America or Europe, you&#8217;ll find people who do it better. We can be the kings of the litungu though. And thanks to this, people may be more interested in our music,” he adds.
Chacha is also teaching young musicians that music is not only for entertainment. His songs encourage people to vote in elections and warn against malaria or AIDS.
&#8220;What is most important is its educational role and the message it carries,&#8221; he says.
Music is also an important element of national identity. In 1964, when President Julius Nyerere united Zanzibar and the mainland Tanganyika to form Tanzania, traditional art gained more significance. His government used the performances of traditional artists from different tribes to break down ethnic differences in the young nation. Chacha joined the national troupe of traditional musicians as a teenager, and played in the group on the litungu for over 36 years.
<div id="attachment_32643" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32643" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-32643" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Music-in-Tanzania_Myriam-Meloni_15-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />A modern guitar and a traditional African drum, belonging to the Cocodo band. (Photo by Myriam Meloni)</div>
The Bagamoyo College of Art, near Chacha&#8217;s house, was founded in 1981 as a training ground for the national troupes. Today, it is one of a few places where people can learn real traditional music. The conditions for learning are something from a dream: classes take place just a stone&#8217;s throw from the Indian Ocean and the sound of the waves can be heard from the rooms.
&#8220;Students are increasingly interested in tribal instruments, because they don&#8217;t want to lose their culture. It is now fashionable to combine traditional and modern rhythms,&#8221; says Maulid Mohamed Saleman, a teacher at the Bagamoyo school.
He inherited his musical talent from his parents.
&#8220;My mother was a dancer, and my father a musician and a village leader. When he wanted to meet with his people, he called them by banging on the drums. Sometimes I wonder how he would have reacted if he had had the chance to listen to young people mixing the sound of the drums with modern guitars,&#8221; Saleman says with a smile.
“In the beginning my family thought that I had lost my mind,” says 34-year-old Msafiri Zawose, son of the late traditional musician Hukwe Zawose who played on the ilimba (an instrument made from wood and thin metal plates) and gained international recognition thanks to his collaboration with the British singer Peter Gabriel. “But now they like my music. It sounds different from my father&#8217;s music, but still it&#8217;s a traditional melody,” he says at his house in Bagamoyo.
<div id="attachment_32644" style="width: 478px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32644" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-32644" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Music-in-Tanzania_Myriam-Meloni_09-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="468" height="312" />Msafiri Zawose, son of the late traditional musician Hukwe Zawose, performs with his family at their house in Bagamoyo</div>
Msafiri has already recorded a few albums, and performed in many countries, including the United States.
Yet some older musicians are a little afraid of the consequences of mixing the styles.
<blockquote>“In 20 to 30 years there will be no pure traditional music. But I think it&#8217;s worth paying this price if we save traditional melodies and instruments from disappearing,” says 74-year-old Makame Faki, a famous taarab musician from Zanzibar.</blockquote>
On a hot Saturday night in Nafasi Art Space, a fashionable cultural center in Dar es Salaam, a crowd of young people dance to the music of Ze Spirits. They are drinking local Kilimanjaro beer and eating popcorn.
“Traditional music will evolve but not die. Tanzanians have this music in their genes,&#8221; says Rebecca Corey, the director of Nafasi and a co-founder of the Tanzanian Heritage Project, a cultural initiative whose aim is to record traditional musicians, like Chacha.
<div id="attachment_32645" style="width: 483px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32645" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-32645" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Music-in-Tanzania_Myriam-Meloni_01-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="473" height="315" />A man playing the saxophone at the Dhow Countries Music Academy in Zanzibar</div>
Chacha has also recently performed on stage at Nafasi Art Space with his grandson and his band. Sometimes, he even listens to bongo flava songs. He admits that some of them are not so bad, but he doesn&#8217;t understand why artists dress the way they do.
“Wearing trousers below the waist is not our tradition, wearing glasses is common for CIA agents so that people cannot see their eyes. Sometimes they wear women&#8217;s glasses and think it&#8217;s fine, and sometimes clothes for women and earrings. I pray to God to help them,&#8221; he says, trying to hold back laughter.
However, he might be able to forget about their outfits if they start to take litungu lessons.
“In the end, hip hop sounds almost like the Kurya tribe heroic recitation,” he adds with a smile.
&#8211; Written by Monika Rebala, Photos by Myriam Meloni
This project has been funded by the European Journalism Centre (EJC) via its Innovation in Development Reporting Grant Programme.

‘My Family Thought I Had Lost My Mind’

It’s a Monday afternoon, a band of nobodies are sweating it out for practically nobody in a small room in South Africa’s Limpopo province. This is Shayamore (which means hit more) rehearsing for their next gig.
As the band plays, I find myself tapping and nodding to the rhythm. It’s hard to believe that a hot and raw talent like this is unknown.
The band is made up of five members, for whom music is their daily bread: Goodman Mndawe, a bassist; Solly Ndlovu, a pianist; Lazarus Silubane, a guitarist; Surance Chimbilini, a pianist, and Thabo Khoza, a drummer. For 18 years, they’ve been working and playing in vain.
“We’ve performed in a lot of places but we’ve never had any exposure or media interviews. This is actually our first interview ever,” says Silubane, co-founder of the band.
Gigs are as scarce as interviews.
“We sometimes go for three months without booking any shows,” says Silubane.
“We have to spend our own money to organize gigs, design posters and distribute it just to get our names out there,” says Khoza.
On Sundays they do jazz sessions in taverns. They charge R3, 000 ($215) for a performance and share it between themselves.
“We end up coming back with R2, 000 ($145) because of expenses like transport and food. And then we have to divide the money by five.  And it happens that we hire dancers as well and have to pay them,” says Khoza.
To them music is life as well as bread.
“Music feeds my soul… I can tell my story through this music,” says Khoza.
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For Khoza, who joined the band in 2014, becoming a musician wasn’t easy.
“After my mother passed away I had to stay with my aunt and she wanted me to become something else. I lost my relationship with my dad. Every time I would run away and go to practises, until she was convinced that I’m really serious about music. Then I started playing music in clubs and local taverns. I had a guitar which was a gift from someone,” he says.
“I had to sell the guitar for R700 ($50) because I was desperate for money and I needed to move out of my father’s place. I couldn’t stay with him when he didn’t believe in me and my music. When I went back to Mpumalanga that’s when I met Lazarus and he introduced to me to the band,” says Khoza.
“Every time we’re behind the instruments we tell ourselves that we are on a big stage, even if there’s no spotlight, and that the universe will one day recognize us.”
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They want to release an album, but money is a problem.
“We don’t want to be signed under any record label because we’ll lose our freedom to do music the way we want. Our aim is to be independent,” says Silubane.
“You see this guitar I’m holding, I take it as my lover. And I’ll never stop playing it, only death would stop me,” says Madalwe.
In five years’ time, they want to be like one of the world’s greatest icons, Michael Jackson, and perform in New York and London.
It’s nice to dream, unfortunately the reality says next year this time around they’ll be playing in Limpopo. That’s just the way it is.

Band-054

‘The universe will one day recognize us’

As a young, flamboyant man who toured the world and sold thousands of records all Papa Penny Penny could think about was fame.  Twenty three years later, he thinks young musicians should think about saving their money and life insurance.
Older and wiser, Penny Penny, whose real name is Eric Kobane, talks to us in his home in Nkuri Village, Sifasonke in South Africa’s Limpopo province. He returned to the village, where it all started, in 2003 because he ran out of money.
“We have to understand that death is inevitable, it doesn’t notify you that you’re going to die at a certain time. Therefore people must have insurance for themselves and their families. Even though [musicians] don’t get paid monthly, every little that you get you must save it so that when you die your family will be able to bury you,” says Penny Penny.
“There are so many artists that are being buried by the government. But it’s not obliged to bury us. If I die poor, I would be to blame for not saving.”
Emerging artists should listen. Penny Penny, a veteran of the African music scene and the Shangaan Disco King, as he is referred to, remains relevant today.
He grew up with traditional dance. After years working at a mine, Penny Penny started making demo recordings and sent them to record labels. He was rejected every time.
“My voice was too small, not like this. They kept rejecting me because of my voice. I went to different companies and I remember one producer said I have a voice like a donkey. I was so disappointed but I never stopped,” he says.
His breakthrough came in 1994 when a Tsonga singer and producer, Joe Shirimani, discovered him at the offices of a record label where Penny Penny was working as a cleaner, earning a mere R400 ($29) a month.
“I didn’t have a place to sleep because I had used all my money to make demos. So I was secretly sleeping at the company and at night I’d go into the studio and teach myself how to use the equipment. I got caught. But Joe asked me to sing back-up for another artist. He got the label to record demos with me and from there we did my first album within seven days,” says Penny Penny.
With his first cheque of R150,000 ($10,800) Penny Penny bought a house, in Kempton Park, in Johannesburg’s East Rand.
“Anybody who wants to be a star has to learn to make money and save it. Young musicians go for girls, parties and expensive cars but don’t own a home,” he says.
More than 20 years since Penny Penny released his first album Shaka Bundu, he says it’s harder to find success.
<div id="attachment_31472" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31472" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-31472 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101-1024x686.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="686" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101-300x201.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101-600x402.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101-768x515.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Penny Penny</div>
“This is a very difficult industry. We don’t get money every month; sometimes we get royalties after six months. When it comes you find that we have huge debts that we have to pay back, making it difficult to save.”
According to Penny Penny, South Africans support American artists more than their homegrown musicians.
Penny Penny himself draws bigger crowds away from home. His first performance in Mozambique filled a stadium with 37,000 people.
“We lost six people because of the stampede. I get surprised by the way people treat me; they welcome me in airports just to see if it’s really me,” he says.
It is not only his music that captured the hearts of fans – his flamboyant personality and pineapple phondo are just as popular.
It hasn’t always been good for Penny Penny though. He was accused of beating up his former manager, Lerato Manaka, who claims that he owes her R200,000 for gigs he performed since June 2016.
“My company hired her to be my PR person and to promote my CD with DJ Maphorisa. I didn’t hire her. She promised me a sponsor; I asked to get a contract. She never did, until she faked the contract. She’d organize interviews and then people would demand money from me. How can I owe her if she was the one paying me? Artists get their money from managers after they’ve taken their percentage,” says Penny Penny.
In January 1995, false news of his death circulated. Penny Penny believes the rumours were started by fellow musicians out of jealousy.
“They shot and killed my security guard because they thought it was me,” he says.
Penny Penny has been through a lot of bad publicity and rough times in his career. He rarely gives interviews.
“Media can build and break our careers. Newspapers will put you on the front page and say you did this and that, whereas it’s all lies. Even today, I’m surrounded by lots of propaganda, lies – manga manga business. They’ve been trying to destroy my reputation, I’ve decided not do any interviews again.”
Penny Penny never spent a day in school. For this reason, he is reliant on lawyers for all his business deals.
“In a contract, I only check money. I don’t see a lot of the stuff that is written in there. And I never sign a contract without a lawyer,” he says.
The 57-year-old still works very hard, touring constantly, and he has a reality TV show called Papa Penny Ahee that helps bring in the money. This time it is being used wisely knowing he will never retire.

Penny-0021

If I Die  Poor,  Blame Me

In the Africa I know, we sing and dance when we are happy, when we go to the battlefield, and in times of bereavement. We did it at the memorial service of 86-year-old South African female jazz trailblazer, Thandiwe ‘Thandi’ Klaasen on a warm January day. She died a week before, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Could we have celebrated the colorful and illustrious career of Klaasen without the music and renowned Sophiatown style, the multiracial suburb she lived in until it was cleared away by apartheid?
Born in 1931 in Sophiatown, Klaasen and her contemporaries used music to fight the oppressive system and patriarchy. Tired of being an appendage to male bands, she formed a female vocal quartet called the Quad Sisters that shot to stardom with a hit song Carolina Wam, in 1952. They influenced the formation of younger female groups, including Miriam Makeba’s The Skylarks.
On this Wednesday afternoon at the memorial service at Germiston City Hall, east of Johannesburg, songs intertwined with messages of condolences from politicians, musicians and family. One outstanding tribute was the family band’s adaptation of Louis Armstrong’s hit, What A Wonderful World.
&nbsp;
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself Mam’ Thandi,
Was a beautiful soul, A great dancer
and entertainer, If you agree just clap
your hands, Say how did you do.
&nbsp;
This classic was followed by words of Lorraine Klaasen, the image of her mother.
“I was a good observer of my mom. When I grew up I wanted to be like my mother, I wanted to travel the world like my mom and make people happy with my music. And I am really living the promise I made to myself… Music made my mom very happy… She travelled with me as artists but she played that role of a mom…,” says Lorraine, a 2013 Juno Award winner for World Music Album of the Year in Canada.
“What I am going to miss about my mother is her big heart and courage to start something and see it to the end. She taught me to trust in God. She was hardly in hospital. She was a very strong woman and a disciplinarian,” adds her son Roger Phambane.
The snazzy great-grandma’s penchant for wine drew chuckles.
Klaasen’s spells of inebriation were rarely boring. A friend and protégé, Abigail Kubeka, told tales of cooking and empty bottles.
“After all, she was a mother, a housewife and everything. She loved cooking her mutton curry for her husband, Lucas. One day she didn’t realize a cloth fell into her pot. So, she dished out for her husband and Lucas was eating with a fork, but the fork couldn’t pick up the meat. He called her: ‘Thandi, what have you cooked? You said you wanted mutton curry, that’s mutton curry. Ja, mutton curry, but this is a dish cloth,’” says Kubeka to raucous laughter.
Klaasen, among other things, was a magician. She would make a wine disappear in a second, says Nandipha Ndlovu, a granddaughter who called her a role model. Ndlovu is a young doctor in Germiston.
All the speakers agreed on Klaasen’s stoicism and resilience, mentioning how she survived the horror of 1977 when someone – maybe a rival – threw acid in her face. She was in hospital for almost a year.
“That day the fire was set to put an end to her rising star, but they were wrong. That was the day she was truly born. Everyone has got their turning point in their lives. We can rather choose to pursue it, chase your dream or you can turn back, or you can fail. But she didn’t choose to fail,” says Ndlovu.
She would tell people ‘they can burn my face, but they can’t burn my voice,’ says Khubeka.
She also used to joke that she never had one wrinkle in her face. Clearly she never lost the love and respect of her family, nor her sense of humor.

They Can Burn My Face, But They Can’t Burn  My Voice

We drive to Tshepo Sedumo’s home in Atlasville, an affluent part of Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, to learn about the loud speakers he makes in his quiet neighborhood.
We get lost and suspicious security guards start trailing us before we find his double-storey house. Sedumo welcomes us in and offers us something to drink.
The 24-year–old entrepreneur, from the Free State province, is tall and light-skinned, and runs his business from home.
When he was growing up, his family of five moved from province to province as his father found work around the country. In 2001, his father secured a job as an accountant in Johannesburg; from then on the City of Gold was home.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-4630" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_20160801_160410-300x197.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="197" />
“My life began when we came here; I made a lot of changes, new schools, new environments, big city, it was meant to be,” says Sedumo.
He was always a DIY person as a young boy; he liked messing around with things he found around the house. That’s because he never really had toys, he says. Sedumo passed the time by putting random things together which he enjoyed and kept him off the streets.
In high school Sedumo learned new skills and started using power tools, like drills. However, he was an accounting student – he studied BCom finance at varsity, but still did handy work in his spare time. Later, spare time became full time as Sedumo dropped his studies to pursue a business making boomboxes.
It was a simple start – it all began with wooden boxes and hinges. Sedumo put computer speakers in the boxes and connected them to the iPod he had recently bought.
It wasn’t the best design but it worked well and people loved it, he says. Encouraged by this, Sedumo wanted to improve his product and make his speakers sound better.
“As time went on, I added moulding on the inside to make it steadier; I worked on it to a point where I actually messed it up. I overworked it,” he laughs.
He kept trying different styles but couldn’t settle on something he was happy with, until he went to YouTube for ideas to better the speakers.
In 2013, Sedumo, for the first time, tried to build something that is battery powered.
“Most of my information didn’t come from school. I learned, on the internet, of a few things, bought some components online and built something that was ugly but powerful and worked with auxiliary. A year later, I decided to use a car stereo and built it into the ugly speakers and that boosted the power and had auxiliary, a SD card slot and USB; it was great,” he says.
YouTube is where his idea was sparked. He saw a boombox made from cardboard, but Sedumo thought it would look better in wood and gathered more research online.
In 2014, he built his first boombox, using wood and veneer. It worked well, the sound was great and it was portable. His friends suggested he make a business out of it.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-4629" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_20160801_152723-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“For me it was just to have a sound system and to impress girls, and that’s how I started to lose interest in my studies,” he says.
Sedumo failed his second year and decided to take a break. He turned his attention to boomboxes and has never looked back. His heart was never in school, his passion was in boomboxes and his business Grove Audio was born.
He took it seriously, experimenting with different styles, builds and material, including a backpack boombox.
Sedumo loves hip-hop and associates the music with a boombox. He says the boombox also brings back nostalgic memories for people older than him, like his mom, who owned one when she was younger.
In 2016, Sedumo released a range called Grove Audio G2 (Groove 2). Priced at R2,000 ($150), and able to play for 10 hours using Bluetooth, they sold out within a month.
“I want to differentiate the boomboxes; there is the G series and the S series which are special boomboxes and in 2017 I want to come with the R series; large boomboxes for rent to house parties, etc,” he says.
Sedumo’s custom-made boomboxes are available online, and occasionally at pop-up markets around Johannesburg, and selling internationally.
Sedumo is making a name for himself by creating old-school boomboxes with modern technology. Like the songs they play, these boomboxes are sure to be a hit.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4628" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/BoomBox-328-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />

The Sound Of A  Booming Business

It is a windy day in Johannesburg, South Africa. Thick dark clouds assemble in the sky; the wind is as swift as rush hour. As we meet, Oliver Mtukudzi carries a brown bag, full of his life, on his shoulder. He carries the bag everywhere, just as he wears his trademark poor boy cap. Dressed in a black jacket and grey pants, he stands high up on the stairs to welcome us. He is in South Africa to promote his 65th album, Eheka! Nhai Yahwe, which features South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela. It’s a remarkable career stretching back some 41 years with songs that have enlivened parties all over the world with hits like Neria, Todii and Wasakara.
“I never decided to be in the music industry. It was in me. My mother said ‘you are a good singer but you will never surpass your birth cry. Your birth cry was so beautiful’. So I believe that’s when I started singing, from my first breath,” says Mtukudzi.
Born in 1952 in Highfield, a suburb in Harare, Zimbabwe, on September 22 at 3AM; music runs in his blood. Both his parents were musicians. They met at a choir competition and the competition never ended. They competed at home and the children were the judges.
“If we needed a favor from dad, then dad won and if we needed a favor from mum, mum won.”
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5541" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Oliver-Mtukudzi-018-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
It wasn’t long before he followed.
“I made a three-string guitar for myself from a tin around 1969 or early 1970s with the help of a [relative]. I was always playing it. My father didn’t like it and he broke the guitar,” he recalls.
It wasn’t going to stop him. He made up songs as a child and sang everywhere.
“One day, I decided to perform for my parents standing on the table and they enjoyed it so much I didn’t get smacked for standing on the table. I remember my mother noticed I had been standing on the table, two or three days later. That’s how good it was,” he chuckles.
Mtukudzi followed his passion. In the 1970s, he joined Wagon Wheels, a band which included yet another Zimbabwean star, Thomas Mapfumo, the man who wrote Nyoka Musango and is known as the king of Chimurenga music.
“I love what I do. If I was doing a career, I would be worried about how much money I can make. I am yet to decide on a career to take on. This is not a career for me. I am just doing me. This is about understanding the purpose of a song, to bring life and hope to the people and to heal broken hearts. If you do it right, there is more in appreciation than getting paid.”
His skill is appreciated from Angola to Zimbabwe. He has won many awards; among them, the National Arts Merit Awards, Zimbabwe Music Awards, KORA Awards and South African Music Awards.
“All my songs are my favorites. If it’s not one of my favorites, I will just throw it away. You won’t get to hear it. It won’t make it to my album. Awards are an appreciation. They shouldn’t put any pressure on me, otherwise I will lose the purpose of the song,” he says.
The deep voice of Mtukudzi has brought music to the next generation. Taught by their father, his children Selmor and Sam Mtukudzi became music stars in their own right.
“One day, in March 2010, I was in Johannesburg and my son, Sam, was supposed to pick me up in Harare at the airport.”
Mtukudzi sent Sam a message telling him he was no longer coming. Unfortunately, the text didn’t go through. Sam drove to the airport to pick him up. And tragedy struck.
“I got a call that evening and they said he had been in an accident on his way home from the airport. They were taking him to the hospital and I was to come as soon as possible. They wouldn’t give me the details,” says Mtukudzi.
When he arrived at the airport all his close friends and family were there.
“I realized something was really wrong. They were all crying and I knew my son had passed on. I couldn’t believe it. My last words with him, we joked and now he was gone. I am still learning to live with it.”
This is a big loss for Mtukudzi. Sam performed and toured with his father.
“He was always on my left side when he was on stage with me. That alone, when I’m on stage, it makes me remember he is not there. Every time I am on stage, I feel the emptiness but it is also therapeutic because I feel him the most when I’m on stage.”
After Sam’s death, it was hard to sing again. In 2012, after two long years of grief, Mtukudzi released Sarawoga – in his mother tongue, it means “left alone”.
“Some of the songs in the album were meant to be in collaboration with my son so this was some kind of therapy for me. I didn’t want to throw away the work we had sweated on. I had to finish it off,” he says.
One of the songs in the album is Shamiso, named after Mtukudzi’s daughter.
“Sam was more of a friend than a son. One of the songs we were working on was Shamiso. She was getting married and we were going to sing the song at her wedding.”
It hasn’t been an easy journey. According to Mtukudzi, for as long as there are people, there is something to talk about and if there is something to talk about, then there is something to sing about.
“My music comes from the people, the environment and some of it from personal experiences. Things come up when I’m driving and I park on the side and write it down, you don’t budget time for a song. This is a tough industry. There are a lot of obstacles but you have to be strong. There is no shortcut, you just have to go all the way and remain true to yourself,” he says.
As Mtukudzi learns to live with the loss of his son, he is trying to break barriers. He is adapting a famous 1961 Zimbabwean book, Pfumo Reropa, spear of blood in chiShona, by Patrick Chakaipa.
“I’m not going to retire. I can’t run away from myself. I noticed that some of our literature is being thrown away. It is being ignored probably because there are no visuals to them, so I felt I should take one of the popular books at home and script it into motion picture to encourage our youngsters to be more interested in African literature.”
Through the loss and the pain, Mtukudzi is trying to build something of substance for Africa out of the ruins. Surely, that is a tribute to the loss of a loved son.

Tag: Music

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