JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Jerusalema singer loves T&T

Will play mas if she gets the chance

by

1090 days ago
20220731

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

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.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored