Mzina is quite the reticent fellow. His usual get up is a plain shirt and jeans, sometimes accompanied by a bucket hat, but most of the time, he keeps it cool.
His shy personality in person surprisingly doesn’t translate into his music – he transforms into someone else when he’s in the booth.
It’s unfortunate that his debut album titled ‘Ixuna’ doesn’t really do him justice but as they say, there’s always room for improvement.
Born at Ondangwa and raised at Okahandja, Mzina has been all over the country, eventually settling at Ovitoto for a while. However, he works at Otjiwarongo at the moment. The 25-year-old believes that his exposure to various environments has helped him incorporate a distinct Namibian flavour in his music.
“I decided to do kwaito and house music on the album because I wanted to put everyone in the picture,” the artist says. His music career started since 2009. “I really liked Gazza and The Dogg. I wanted to be like them. And I think the music has always been in me.”
The first track on the album is ‘Chezza’, where he brings out the kwaito side of him and encourages women to dance. And ‘ngengo to chezza, ame namo hai chezza’, he sings, claiming that if you ‘chezza’, then he’ll ‘chezza’ too.
The lyrics are a little repetitive which makes it easy to remember, but they’re also phrases you’ve already heard before such as ‘make the circle bigger’ which harks all the way back to 2010.
‘Warira’ is much more upbeat and would have made a great opening to the album. Nonetheless, this song has an Afro-pop flavour. Although it employs heaps of autotune, it still makes for a great dance-worthy track. Nyairi features on the song and offers something different to the album. “It’s one of my favourite songs,” Mzina said.
The same vibe can be described with the title track ‘Ixuna’ featuring Kalux. “I never thought that I would be here,” he raps, celebrating the feat of finally having the first copy of his album.
On the song ‘Is A Dream’, Mzina serenades the love of his life. “Is a dream of every man to find a girl like you, to dream about you, oh, baby I love you.” Judging by Mzina’s vocals, he can definitely keep up with the beat, but his vocal range could stretch even more if he wanted it to. It’s almost as if he was holding back and this is evident on a couple of songs.
An enjoyable track is ‘Nukilamo’, a combination of house and kwaito and ‘Mango’, which features a similar style. In fact, ‘Mango’ shows Mzina in his element, and it’s clear that he enjoys house more – a genre he should definitely think of pursuing in full. However, the repetitiveness of the lyrics may become slightly irritating.
Although he may be a new addition to the music industry, Mzina is driven and doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.
In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.
The Namibian uses AI tools to assist with improved quality, accuracy and efficiency, while maintaining editorial oversight and journalistic integrity.
Stay informed with The Namibian – your source for credible journalism. Get in-depth reporting and opinions for
only N$85 a month. Invest in journalism, invest in democracy –
Subscribe Now!
