Meet The Diaspora Stars Taking Zimbabwean Music to New Heights!

Zimbabwe’s arts and entertainment industry is not so forgiving to musical talent, those with the capacity have taken flight to relaunch their careers afresh in foreign countries that are more kind towards their craft. One would think, the comfort of foreign land will make local talent forget its roots. Howbeit, we have a lot more Zimbabwean artists based in the diaspora who still produce music for Zimbabweans despite being away from home and taking Zimbabwean music to new heights. 

Artists who are based in the diaspora have managed to ignite a spark and place Zimbabwe in the limelight as they continue to upgrade with each release. Credit should be given to the musicians living in the diaspora as they have played a significant role in stimulating the diaspora to take an interest in our music. Truth be told, some of the bookings of local artists to new destinations, new performance venues, and bigger crowds can be accredited to artists based in the diaspora who have paved the way (story for another day). It is the joint effort of both the talented gents and ladies who have remained true and patriotic to the flag despite relocating to different countries around the world and in this article, we will acknowledge their efforts.

Julian King

Let us start with Julian King, one of the Zimbabwean artists who has continued pursuing his music career even after relocating to Texas Dallas in the United States of America. Born Julian Lennon Kanombirira and branded as Julian King is a singer, songwriter and performer. He is also the mastermind and leader of the Kingdom Nation movement owing to when he was still a member of the infamous ZimPraise Music Group. 

Julian King has seen some tremendous success in his music journey, including the massive collaboration with Saint Flow last year in May 2023. The jam got almost the whole country tapping their feet to the rhythm of the “one by one” song and had a massive reception by the fans leading it to be a hit song. Statistically, the jam fetched over 5 million views, and 37K likes on YouTube alone, placing Zimbabwe on the map of globally competitive music. The song topped the chat shows on all the urban radio stations in Zimbabwe including Power FM, Star FM and ZiFM Stereo winning him the hearts of many.  

His latest song is “Ndiri muZimba” which he proudly associates with his home country through his lyrical prowess, showing some love for his country despite living abroad. The song currently has over 144,000 views and 3300 likes at the time of publication of this article and we hope to continue getting more jams from the man.

Nox Guni

Another music icon in the diaspora is the “Ndinonyara” hitmaker from Masvingo (Mas-Vegas) in Zaka. Nox Nguni is a Zimbabwean artist who is now South African-based with over 140,000 subscribers on YouTube. Despite being in the diaspora, he has managed to maintain significant influence over local music. 

He has managed to penetrate the locked South African music scene by doing many strategic collaborations with South African artists thereby extending Zimbabwean music to a foreign audience. Melody was the first strategic collaboration he did in 2020 with Master KG, the South African hitmaker who saw global success with his sing Jerusalema that got tremendous success. Nox pivoted off Master KG’s glory and the song Melody managed to pull off over 5 million views on YouTube. He went on to release a track titled Stay with Me featuring DJ Tira in June 2023, another strategic collaboration and over a million views on YouTube.  The Zaka Prince has in history had a good hitmaking record, recognizing one of his old projects called uchandifunga which had 2 185 118 views in 2018. Nox is one of those well-travelled artists who is making fans out of each global city he performs in.

Quonfuzed

Moving on we have, drum roll please, Qounfused! Another dancehall reggae artist based in the United Kingdom has over 153,000 followers on Instagram, 204,000 followers on Facebook and over 106,000 subscribers on YouTube. He has risen to prominence as he has made a positive impact in his musical career. Qounfuzed has toured numerous shows, performing in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and India only to mention a few helping popularise Zimdancehall. Amongst his shelve of hits with over a million views, Qounfuzed has given us Nguva in 2023, Kamunamato kekubhawa featuring Bazooka in 2022, Stop it I Like It 2022, 9ine in 2021 and Memories in 2022. He seems to have slowed down in terms of his frequency of releasing music but each time a project drops, you are assured it will have some good club vibes worthy of an all-night repeat.

Buffalo Souljah

Still on the dancehall scene, this article wouldn’t be complete Without mentioning one of the best reggae dancehall artists in Africa Buffalo Soujah. Born as Thabani Ndlovu, Buffalo Souljah, is a South African-based Zimbabwe who has won over ten times at the channel O Africa music video awards and Sound City music awards. He is also the proud founder and owner of a record label called the United Nations of Africa Music Group (U.N.A). 

Buffalo Souljah released a hit song song in 2017 collaborating with the Bigman Winky D which had over 2 million views called Rugare which instantly became popular with the ghetto. He has also done some collaborations with the dancehall channel Freeman HKD Boss on a track titled Munamato in July 2020. Buffalo Souljah still has roots at home as witnessed by the collaborations that he has done with local artists in recent years. He features on the infamous fire emoji remix dropping some hot vocals sampling an old song in his verse Mudiwa Janet by John Chibadura. Historically he has always supported upcoming artists and maybe that’s why he went on to start a record label. Some of the artists he has worked with in the days of the old are Kinnah on the song Gwenya and Maneta on the song Soja ripe.

Decibel

Another popular reggae dancehall artiste is Daniel Mazhindu popularly known as Decibel who realized some success and popularity with urban grooves. After the alleged death of the urban grooves, he relocated to Nottingham in the United Kingdom and continued working on his music career. He started by remaking and releasing his iconic track Chido which has over 200K views on YouTube. Recently, he collaborated with Freeman on a track called Bhingo off his latest album Kumusha which has over 111K views on YouTube. It is that reason he’s made it to the list of diaspora stars taking Zimbabwe music to new heights.

Annatoria

Ladies, where are you at? We have Annatoria a young lady in her early 20s, one of the prominent musicians in Zimbabwe living in the diaspora. Annatoria lives in the United Kingdom and rose to fame after winning The Voice UK in 2020. Annatoria born as Blessing Chitapa is an RnB, gospel as well as African pop hitmaker.

In 2022 Annatoria kept a lot of souls on the dancefloor grooving to a hit song she collaborated with Ishan in 2022 titled Lola. The song was a huge success with over 4.5 million views on YouTube. Her shelf of hits with over a million views on YouTube is a mixture of RnB and gospel songs including Stay with Me, Put it on God with Limoblaze and her cover of Yeshua. In her latest project, Annatoria featured with Joe Barnes and released a song titled Fountain which has 50 thousand views so far released in late March this year. 

The young unstoppable and talented lady did a song in 2022 called Stay with Me which went viral on radio and online streaming platforms, garnering over 46000 likes and 1.6 million views on Youtube. There is no denying that she has an impressive vocal range and a unique vocal technique with just her social media following, a mic and her voice, she did a cover for Jesus Image called Yeshua and has been trending with 112,000 likes and over 2 million views. We look forward to more music from the vocalist and songstress.

Cindy

Another lady taking Zimbabwe’s music to another level is Cindy Munyavi. Born in 1984, Cindy is a songwriter and a songstress from Zimbabwe now based in the United States of America. Cindy started from humble beginnings and proved that hard work pays off, she is one of the prominent figures of the urban grooves era who became popular with songs like Parere Moyo and Ndidzorere moyo wangu. 

She’d go on to release a hit album titled Kukuda in 2000 which put her on the scene with the radio stations playing her songs back to back. For those not old enough to have experienced the 2000 Cindy album, she released a track called Setter Pace which has over 110K views on YouTube in 2017. Mhosva is another one of her songs loved by many which features Ouonfuzed and has 201 768 views.

Despite relocating to the USA, Cindy continued with her music career and released a song early this year 2024 titled Red Flags. Whether or not we can expect more music from her is unknown as she seems to be doing something else but hey, we know each time she hits the studio, something nice will come out. 

Shasha

To top the list of female artists is the queen of amapiano Shasha, the only Zimbabwean to get a Grammy nomination and the only Zimbabwean with a Grammy award much more to the award closet. ShaSha, whose vocals are a mixture of Pop, House, and Afrobeats, brings out the best urban sound. Her talent is impressive, and listening to one of her many songs will tell it all! Hers is the story of a young girl from a small unknown town to becomes a huge success in the highly competitive music industry of South Africa.

 She settled in the camp of one of the key people to make amapiano music go global, DJ Maphorisa and Kabza deSmall. Under their label, she released hit after hit with her songs all landing in millions of views on youtube and tons of streams on a streaming platform like Spotify. Her Blossom album is the one that brought tonnes of success to her and got her branded the queen of amapiano, it had hits like Tender Love which has over 14 million views on YouTube.

She also has some iconic features with stars like Something Soweto on the song Akulaleki which has over 7 million views. Some argue and say Sing It Back is by far her best song but another camp can easily challenge that with her feature with iconic MFR souls on the song Love You Tonight. Whatever your taste is in her best song, she is our very own Shasha helping with putting the brand Zimbabwe on the map as well as popularizing our music too.

Conclusion

Last but not least we give a big shout-out to the Zimbabweans in the diaspora who are making music but did not make it to this list.  Also, shout out to names that shaped the Zimbabwean music space and later went out of the country for various reasons but still give us small doses of their music, we remember you all. the likes of:

•  Sani Makhalima whose latest project is Munyama.
•  Benjamin Hamandishe whose YouTube is filled with live performances of gospel music.
• Elizabeth Shingai who gave us Harare to Mutare featuring Bryan K.

Zimbabwean musicians living abroad have played a big role in helping local musicians perform overseas. In the past, it was hard for local musicians to get opportunities abroad, even though they were talented. However, by collaborating with musicians living abroad, they have been able to reach audiences outside of Zimbabwe. This has become possible because they can now work together and make videos despite being in different places, and they can promote their music through social media and the internet. As a result, the future of Zimbabwean music looks very promising.

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