Sowetan

Ntsiki back with a bang

Singer blasts govt in latest album

- By Patience Bambalele

Controvers­ial performer and poet Ntsiki Mazwai is stirring trouble with her latest and third album, The Masterpiec­e, which will be dropped on April 27.

Her last album, Ndingubani, was released in 2013. Mazwai said the album was aimed at reminding people that freedom was too hardearned to be given away easily.

“I am reminding people that the freedom we claim to have was brought through bloodshed,” she explained.

“I am showing people that government does not care. Nothing has changed for the black nation; the only thing that changed is the slave master’s complexion.”

In one of her songs, titled The Enemy, Mazwai takes a swipe at the ANC and newly appointed president Cyril Ramaphosa.

In the lyrics of the song, she mentions that in the past, the enemy was in a different shape but now the enemy looks exactly like her.

She further states that while people live in poverty, Ramaphosa was concerned about buying his buffalo.

“He cannot own up to Marikana, but he wants us to put an X next to his face on the ballot paper. Marikana is still bleeding,” she said. “This is a president; he works for us, not the other way round.”

On releasing the album on Freedom Day, Mazwai laughed it off, saying it was coincidenc­e. “I noticed the importance of April 27 I saw a need to use the day to start having dialogues.”

In working on The Masterpiec­e, Mazwai felt the need to move back to Soweto for inspiratio­n.

Asked what took her so long to drop The Masterpiec­e album, she said after releasing Ndingubani she realised she was not using her voice properly.

“I went back to school and did a masters [degree]. Since then, my writing style has changed – it has more images.”

 ?? / SIMPHIWE NKWALI ?? Ntsiki Mazwai says her songs are more vivid on her new album.
/ SIMPHIWE NKWALI Ntsiki Mazwai says her songs are more vivid on her new album.

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