Nox’s Ice ‘n’ Roses promotes young talent
Award-winning musician Enock “Nox” Guni appears to have mastered the formula of how to stay relevant beyond borders and has pledged to use that expertise and influence to jumpstart local talent on the international scene. The MyMelody hit-maker, has been based in South Africa for over a decade and despite releasing music all along, only a handful of songs made the same impact as he had during the reign of urban grooves at the turn of the millennium.
Being far from home fans, little knowledge of how the South African music industry works and professional commitments were among some of the factors that weighed in on his promising career then.
However, over the past year, with hits like Kure Kure,Mufaro and Wayimutambisa, the 37-yearold has bounced back and he is ready to take the younger generation with him.
“We are trying to mentor the kids so that they might achieve things we might not have been able to achieve in this lifetime because we came in without anyone holding our hands, we came in blindfolded,” Nox told StandardStyle.
“We learnt as we went forward, but we want to teach the young ones now that we know what it is like out there. It is an opportunity for them to have us as their mentors because we have been there and we know which roads to take and which ones not to.”
Over the past two weeks, pictures of the Ice n Roses boss with local rapper ProBeatz and Kae Chaps, of Juzi fame, have been doing rounds on the internet attracting interest over what kind of project they are working on.
“Pro Beatz and Kae Chaps did a couple of projects with Tyfah [my younger brother] who is also the producer at Ice ‘n’ Roses. They also did a song with my artiste Chad and I am focusing on the sound engineering of these projects to make sure that they are of good quality,” Nox disclosed.
According to Nox, such collaborations will help propel local talent to greater heights.
“I really want to see Zimbabwean music going forward and the youths are our hope for the future. We are not going to live forever so we need to make sure that we mentor these kids so that when they go out there, they can be able to compete on an international platform,” he said.
Nox urged fellow creatives to invest time in understanding the music business and not feel ashamed to learn from others’ success stories.