Former FreshlyGround lead singer Zolani Mahola’s solo career is levelling up as the musician enters into a global partnership with US company Virgin Music Group (VGM). Unlike traditional labels, VGM plugs independent artists with distribution, marketing and access to the international market. The musician celebrates the partnership with her single XhosaNostra featuring the late Bravo le Roux.
Mahola retains her independence and VGM will use its extensive networks to distribute her works across multiple streaming platforms including Apple and Deezer. The company’s marketing team will also be instrumental in amplifying Mahola’s music.
For the living, death comes with the responsibility of celebrating the lives of the departed instead of mourning them. Noble as this is, the permanence of death commands hearts to break and lives to be shattered by the loss, particularly when people as young as Bravo who was just 30 when he passed.
Mahola describes her late friend as a warm, funny and energetic individual, saying it was inevitable for her to love him.
“He was an unbelievable lyricist and incredible MC who articulated his experiences of being a young black man growing up in extreme circumstances that many people could relate to,” says a proud Mahola who says the release of XhosaNostra is to also honour Bravo.
The single goes live on June 4th and layers Gqom into Mahola’s deep Xhosa influences, birthing a textured merger between cultural pride and creative expression. She plans to release a series of singles to wet her fans’ palates for the full album People Power which will drop later in the year.
The musician describes her upcoming album as a recognition of human beings’ collective power to advocate for the kinds of communities they wish to live in and to realise that voices and actions can lead to change.
“There are themes of reclamation of our personal and collective power, of a call to recognize our agency, of cultural and national pride and there is also the continuation of the iconic song “Nomvula.”
The Freshlyground hit released in 2004 was Mahola’s lamentation of losing her mother at a very young age and painted a heartbreakingly heartwarming picture of what life was like for a young girl who was raised by her widower father. She promises to surprise her fans through the exploration of other genres that they haven’t experienced from her.
The VGM partnership is not Mahola’s first taste of international success as she stood alongside the iconic Shakira to lead Freshlyground in the 2010 World Cup anthem Waka Waka. She says her biggest brag is to still be here 25 years since the dawn of her musical career and continuing to explore music, her identity and purpose. XhosaNostra can be pre-saved here.Shakira is not the only icon she has shared the stage with as Mahola has also worked with legendary veterans Vusi Mahlasela, Busi Mhlongo, Hugh Masekela and Oliver Mtukudzi. Contemporary artists who have stood next to Mahola in music include Thandiswa Mazwai, Simphiwe Dana, Msaki, J’Something, Jesse Clegg, Arno Carstens and Ami Faku.