Gillian Cal­iste

In the midst of an ag­o­nis­ing pan­dem­ic, it erupt­ed on every so­cial me­dia plat­form and in main­stream me­dia—a line dance sen­sa­tion start­ed by some An­golan youths as they moved hyp­not­i­cal­ly with eat­ing uten­sils in hand. Pow­er­ing the dance was Nom­ce­bo Zikode’s gospel-in­spired Afrobeat song with DJ Mas­ter KG “Jerusale­ma”, her en­chant­i­ng voice an en­gine of strength, uni­ty and hope.

For Zikode, a South African singer, song­writer and mu­si­cian, “Jerusale­ma” al­so came at a time when she was on the verge of giv­ing up on a singing ca­reer. The song would be­come a mega glob­al suc­cess and would see the artiste on an African tour in 2020 and a Eu­ro/US tour when some bor­ders re-opened in 2021.

Zikode graced the shores of T&T al­most three weeks ago as part of Afrobeat and so­ca col­lab­o­ra­tions with lo­cal com­pos­er/pro­duc­er Ian Wilt­shire of David Rud­der’s “Tri­ni2 The Bone” fame, and singer/com­pos­er/pro­duc­er Mi­cal Te­ja for Car­ni­val 2023. She is al­so card­ed to work with lo­cal so­ca artistes and par­tic­i­pate in Car­ni­val 2023 events host­ed by I S Pro­mo and Gem­i­ni Pro­duc­tion. Ivory Coast vo­cal­ist Elody Amond­ji is al­so ex­pect­ed to team up with Wilt­shire. Zikode al­so ap­peared on a morn­ing pro­gramme and at a brief press con­fer­ence be­fore leav­ing T&T on Ju­ly 15 to con­tin­ue her world tour.

Hail­ing from Mpumalan­ga al­so called Ham­mars­dale in east­ern South Africa, Zikode penned the colos­sal hit “Jerusale­ma” in her na­tive Zu­lu lan­guage in late 2019 and DJ Mas­ter KG added his beats. With trans­lat­ed lyrics like “Jerusalem, my home, Save me! Join me, Don’t leave me here!”, it be­came the an­them of hope and sol­i­dar­i­ty of the pan­dem­ic, shoot­ing to Num­ber 1 in sev­er­al coun­tries, in­clud­ing in Zikode’s home­land South Africa, Num­ber 1 on Bill­board and Ap­ple mu­sic charts, and go­ing triple plat­inum in Italy and Switzer­land and dou­ble plat­inum in Spain. On YouTube, the song has re­ceived com­bined views of al­most one bil­lion.

Pri­or to that, she burst on­to the house mu­sic scene in South Africa in 2018 with “Emazul­wi­ni” on South Africa mix mas­ter DJ Ganyani’s “Ganyani House Grooves 10”. It topped a num­ber of in­ter­na­tion­al charts and grabbed “Best House Record of the Year” in South Africa.

But years be­fore, a star­ry-eyed Zikode had left her vil­lage and gone to Jo­han­nes­burg with big dreams of mak­ing it as a so­lo artiste. She end­ed up be­com­ing a back­ground singer and stud­ied IT as a plan B, al­ways know­ing that it was “not her thing”.

Al­though she had to re­main tight-lipped about the de­tails of her mu­sic col­lab­o­ra­tions so far, when the 36-year-old spoke with Sun­day Guardian via What­sapp voicenotes, Zikode stayed up late to com­plete the in­ter­view and shone through a light and ami­able per­son­al­i­ty. It was much like the one she dis­played in a video by MY­OB Me­dia Pro­duc­tions show­ing snip­pets of her ar­rival at Pi­ar­co on Ju­ly 12, her in­tro­duc­tions to of­fi­cials, the pub­lic and staff at the ho­tel. Sport­ing her icon­ic crisp high fade medi­um top hair­cut—this time with a burst of bright green at the back—and decked in a white shirt and light blue dis­tressed jeans, and white-rimmed sun­glass­es in the video, Zikode was bub­bly as she spoke and joy­ful­ly, but el­e­gant­ly dove on­to her bed, kick­ing her feet in­to the air when she fi­nal­ly ar­rived at her ho­tel in the fi­nal clip.

She shared with Sun­day Guardian her ex­cite­ment about re­turn­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I love your ac­cent so much. I feel like I can lis­ten to it the whole time,” Zikode laughed.

The mag­net­ic artiste al­so talked about her ex­pe­ri­ence hav­ing her mega-hit and the re­sponse to her de­but so­lo sin­gles since “Jerusale­ma”. Hav­ing trav­elled to the US, Eu­rope, Kenya, Ivory Coast, To­go and oth­er parts of Africa, Zikode said she was open to do­ing mu­si­cal col­lab­o­ra­tions with any­one as mu­sic heals souls.

Singing sensation and musician Nomcebo Zikode of South Africa

Q&A with Nom­ce­bo Zikode

Ms. Zikode, first­ly, con­grat­u­la­tions on your mega suc­cess over the last few years. You have in­deed been an in­spi­ra­tion. Please tell me, how did you en­joy your re­cent vis­it to our coun­try, Trinidad and To­ba­go?

It was so amaz­ing the way they will come to me, it was so warm. I can’t wait to go back. I feel like this is re­al­ly go­ing to be my sec­ond home, peo­ple will see me again and again.

Was there a par­tic­u­lar cui­sine or dish that you liked? What was the high­light of your trip (dis­cov­er­ing the park named af­ter the late great Nel­son Man­dela)? Was there any­thing that sur­prised you about Trinidad and To­ba­go?

Oh my gosh! It re­al­ly amazed me to see a park named af­ter Nel­son Man­dela be­cause Trinidad and To­ba­go is very far, I didn’t know that they even know our late Nel­son Man­dela. So that was so amaz­ing for me. And al­so, I re­al­ly en­joyed your food. I re­mem­ber I went to try dou­bles. Oh my gosh, it was so nice. I wish I can eat them again. Trinidad and To­ba­go peo­ple they can re­al­ly cook. All the food that I ate there, it was just too nice, I must say.

Re­gard­ing your main rea­son for be­ing here, briefly, how did your col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ian Wilt­shire and Mi­cal Te­ja for Car­ni­val 2023 come about? Please share any de­tails about how things are pro­gress­ing thus far, for ex­am­ple, type of song, how many songs you plan to col­lab­o­rate on, any song names/top­ics/co-artistes as yet?)

I did go to the stu­dio. Every­thing went well. It’s a pity we didn’t have so much time. Our time was so lim­it­ed, but it’s un­for­tu­nate that I can’t tell you every­thing around it, so it will be a sur­prise for you guys! I am hop­ing that you’re go­ing to love the song.

What do you en­joy most about Trinidad and To­ba­go so­ca?

Oh my gosh! I just love the dance. The dance is just so nice. It re­minds me that I’m African, and al­so I must say, the way Trinidad and To­ba­go peo­ple are speak­ing; they are just like they are singing. So it doesn’t (sur­prise) me that they are good singers. Their mu­sic, es­pe­cial­ly their dance is just so amaz­ing.

Do you plan to play mas (dress up in a cos­tume and hit the road as a mas­quer­ad­er) or will you more like­ly be per­form­ing and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the vibes from atop a big (mu­sic) truck?

Oh yeah, that sounds so beau­ti­ful, so if ever I get that op­por­tu­ni­ty to do that I would ac­tu­al­ly love to in­cor­po­rate that with my per­for­mance on stage. I am hop­ing that I would do it right. Maybe it would be nice al­so for me to sit and look at you guys. You’re the best in do­ing it and I would have more fun to look at you. But if I get an op­por­tu­ni­ty, we can do it to­geth­er.

Turn­ing to, of course, your mega-hit, “Jerusale­ma”, which has pro­pelled you to such mon­u­men­tal in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, how did you come to write and sing it? You had the hit “Emazul­wi­ni” with DJ Ganyani in 2018 and from there, you end­ed up work­ing with Mas­ter KG at a time when you were on the verge of giv­ing up on singing?

I sin­gle-hand­ed­ly wrote and sang the song from A-Z, so for me, this is some­thing that I would nev­er for­get. This is some­thing I would for­ev­er be grate­ful for.

I know that to­day there are so many Jerusale­ma that peo­ple are singing, there are so many re-makes. There is one al­so that Bur­na Boy jumped on. I’m lov­ing that as well. It shows the pow­er of the song. I don’t know whether it’s the melody that peo­ple love so much or the mes­sage, or the voice, but we are just so grate­ful to God for this song.

When I wrote that song I did with DJ Ganyani, it was al­so an amaz­ing song. Peo­ple loved it so much. I can sing this was the song that in­tro­duced me to peo­ple. I was a back­ground singer but peo­ple didn’t ac­tu­al­ly know that I could stand alone, sing a song or write a song from start to fin­ish, so this is what I did ex­act­ly as well in “Jerusale­ma”, I wrote and sang a song from start to fin­ish alone which opened oth­er doors for me.

When I wrote “Jerusale­ma” I didn’t know that the song was go­ing to be this big, but I re­mem­ber that I was at my low­est. I wasn’t okay mu­si­cal­ly be­cause I want­ed to sing so bad like I want­ed to show­case my tal­ent, be heard all over the world. I re­mem­ber say­ing to God: You gave me this voice al­low me to sing to your peo­ple, send the mes­sage across be­cause I be­lieve there was some­thing burn­ing in­side me. As much as I was say­ing “the world”, I was think­ing South Africa, but I think God want­ed to show His pow­er. It doesn’t mat­ter where you come from. You can come from Africa, you can come from a vil­lage, but He is a God of good­ness. Be­cause some peo­ple think in or­der to have a great song, maybe you need to stay in Amer­i­ca or some­where. So I’ll for­ev­er be grate­ful for that.

What was the ex­pe­ri­ence like mak­ing such a strik­ing video for “Jerusale­ma”?

It was a good ex­pe­ri­ence for me but re­mem­ber when you’re do­ing some­thing that you love. In my mind, I didn’t know that peo­ple would love it so much that it would go vi­ral I was do­ing some­thing that I loved, the same way in stu­dio I was just do­ing some­thing that I loved. But in my mind, I want­ed peo­ple to get a sto­ry­line even though they didn’t know Zu­lu which is my home lan­guage. I was so wor­ried that it’s get­ting late, maybe there are some parts that we didn’t get right: Oh my gosh, I won­der if peo­ple would un­der­stand what we are try­ing to say about a par­tic­u­lar shot. The song is say­ing: My home is not here, take me to a holy place where I can find hap­pi­ness . . . I’m so hap­py you guys loved the video.

What were your feel­ings as you saw peo­ple re­spond­ing so favourably to it and re­alised it was be­com­ing such a phe­nom­e­nal hit in 2020, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing such an un­prece­dent­ed time in world his­to­ry – the pan­dem­ic? Please add any feel­ings about your two so­lo hits fol­low­ing “Jerusale­ma”.

I think I had mixed emo­tions be­cause as much as I was hap­py that I would see all colours of peo­ple danc­ing to the song, it came as a shock. So as much as I was hap­py, I was why did this come in a pan­dem­ic, I can’t even go out and sing to peo­ple be­cause I was get­ting emails that peo­ple want me to come to their coun­tries and cel­e­brate the song with them, but I couldn’t go. I had mixed emo­tions. I was hap­py that the song was trav­el­ling, that the song was heal­ing peo­ple dur­ing the hard times of COVID, but I was sad that I can’t trav­el the world.

About my oth­er songs “Xo­la Moya wam” and “Bayabuza”, peo­ple loved my al­bums, the mes­sage was touch­ing their hearts the same way “Jerusale­ma” is touch­ing their hearts. You’ll find some­one say­ing to me: I love the melody of “Jerusale­ma”, but the minute I went to Google the mean­ing it has made me love the song even more. My songs are like that, I love mu­sic with the mean­ing. Mu­sic that can last for­ev­er, that you can play af­ter 10 years and still con­nect with it.

Is the vil­lage Mpumalan­ga (or Ham­mars­dale) where you grew up sim­i­lar to any part of our coun­try you vis­it­ed? Please tell me a lit­tle about your vil­lage . . . and your fam­i­ly if you wish.

It’s not re­al­ly the same be­cause Ham­mars­dale is more like a coastal area and then in Trinidad you feel that you are on an is­land. There are those palm trees that you can­not find in Ham­mars­dale. I think what I can say is the same is that peo­ple who are liv­ing in your coun­try and where I come from do have some­thing sim­i­lar which is hu­man­i­ty. I no­tice that peo­ple there (in T&T) have got so much love. I re­mem­ber one stop where peo­ple were sell­ing food on the streets, be­lieve me I tried to give them mon­ey be­cause I want­ed to sup­port them. They were like: No, no, no. They want­ed me to taste every­thing with­out me pay­ing that alone showed me the kind of peo­ple Trinidad and To­ba­go peo­ple are. They are just so lov­ing, even from the air­port, they’ve got big hearts.

Do you have any fond child­hood mem­o­ries you would like to share? What did you dream of be­com­ing when you were a child?

My biggest mem­o­ry is that we were hap­py kids, we used to play a lot. We were a gen­er­a­tion of free kids. There wasn’t a feel­ing of be­ing bored or like your el­ders would say don’t go out­side, you’ll be hurt like to­day where some par­ents are very in­se­cure about their kids go­ing out­side. Al­so, I was such a hap­py child, when you call me to sing for you, I would sing for you then and there. I would dance then and then. When I was grow­ing up I knew and did say sev­er­al times that I want­ed to be a singer, I want­ed to be an ac­tress. If not, I want­ed to be on TV. I am so grate­ful that I am liv­ing my dream.

Where do you get your keen fash­ion sense?

Oh my gosh! I’ll take this as a com­pli­ment, I didn’t know that I’ve got a fash­ion sense. Be­lieve me, I’m not a per­son who goes with trends. For me, if some­thing sits well on me, if some­thing goes with my hat then I buy it. I don’t buy it be­cause it suits the body of an­oth­er per­son.

How do you keep your skin—and voice—so flaw­less and beau­ti­ful?

I drink a lot of wa­ter be­cause I think wa­ter does help me. I al­ways say to young ones it’s im­por­tant to love our skin, our melanin. I love my skin, be­lieve me. There’s noth­ing I can talk about in par­tic­u­lar that I use, but I love to mois­turise. I drink a lot of wa­ter which I be­lieve helps my voice al­so.