Zimbabwe music producer awes South African artiste
By Own Correspondent – A Zimbabwean music producer is making waves after doing a collaboration with popular South African house music artiste L’vovo Derrango.
Tapfumanashe Rujeko spoke to Shout-Africa about the song ‘Zunza’ which has been getting a lot of airplay on the local music scene and said all he was overwhelmed by the response he got from music lovers.
“Ever since we launched the song on one local radio station, the response has been awesome,” said Rujeko. For Tapfumanashe, music runs in the family as his late uncle Fortune Muparutsa was a popular singer/music producer who did produced a catalogue of hits that included Wangu Ndega in the early 90s.
He was raised in a family of four by her single mother who is a sister to the late musician. Tapfumanashe said he went to South Africa to expand his musical career because of the vibrancy of the industry there. “In 2013 a few years after my uncle passed away, I decided to cross the Limpopo and push my sound there, as I was confident and felt that it would make it there given the vibrancy of the South African musical scene,” narrated the affable artiste.
While in South Africa he managed to record a 4-track demo album which caught the attention of Archie Majola, a popular radio presenter in Durban and a former manager of Big Nuzz (a popular kwaito music group) who then linked him up with other established artistes this side. The young producer said he will producing more of these collaborations in due course.
He also said he was inspired by the then popular group Bongo Muffin which used to fuse Shona and Zulu languages and was a house-hold name in both countries (Zimbabwe and South Africa). “If you take a listen to my song there is a mixture of Shona and Zulu which is what Bongo Muffin used to do so I am following that route,” signed off Rujeko.
