My story begins in the dusty streets of one of the oldest townships of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. I grew up like every other child in the ghetto playing in the streets with improvised toys, pushing used car tyres, turning half cut red bricks into toy cars that we would push all day on sand, making wire cars, footballs made out of plastic and turning my grandmother’s old pots and pans into drums; something that I later developed into a professional career.
Growing up, things were tough. I developed into an adult while I was very young. At the age of 16 I learned to fend for myself after I realised how much my mother was struggling to send us to school and feed us. I was born in a dysfunctional family, my father was never there. My mother was a struggling single parent at my grandparents house, living with at least 10+ other people, my aunties, uncles and cousins all in a 3 roomed house. There was always chaos in the house. I left school and decided that the arts was going to be the thing that I was going to focus on and put all my energy and time into. I was always an average kid at school, had potential to do well, if only I was born in a different environment. When my uncle Mandlenkosi Sinyoro was in Form 4 (last year at secondary school in Zimbabwe), he used to ask me (when I was in grade 7) to help him with his home work, he would ask me to write his History, Science, English notes, he would read out whatever he wanted me to write and he knew I would get almost every word correctly. That’s how much he trusted me and knew I was clever. My uncle is the first person to introduce me to quality music, he used to play a lot of what we now call “classic Zimbabwean music” by the likes of Leonard Zhakata, Leonard Dembo, James Chimombe, Oliver Mtukudzi and that’s where my ear for good music comes from. All these musicians are from the Shona tribe (the biggest tribe In Zimbabwe). In our house Shona wasn’t spoken, I learned the language through listening to these musicians and its not like they were singing basic Shona, they all used the strong, deep words and language , their songs all carried meaningful and real life stories and lessons. I heard these musicians playing in our house regularly through my uncle and I loved the music.
I just didn’t have a stable, consistent and steady support system at home (as many other kids from the ghetto) and not having that kind of stability is something that has had a huge impact in my adult life but this is a story for another day. I am writing my book called “The Path From Njube”…. There was too much going on & one of the worst things about growing up in an environment where there is no stability, crime, teenage pregnancies, chaos & being around a people that have been let down by the system, the government, people who are hungry and angry is that you can easily fall into routine, you can easily be drawn into the world of crime, drugs and alcohol.. What’s around you as a child on a daily basis is normal, right? Before you realised, you are in prison or years have gone by without anything solid for yourself. You have to have a different mentality, you have to be strong minded enough to keep yourself from these dangers, you have to be born different and not many of us a lucky to escape this sad reality. I had had enough of many days sleeping on an empty stomach and not knowing what we were going to eat the next day. How does one decide they are going to leave school at the age 16 and become a drummer/artist? Well, I did. They always say “follow your passion” right? So, I joined the senior team at Umkhathi Theatre Works the arts group that nurtured my talents from the age of 10. I had already featured in some of their big performances, my first ever performance being at the Bulawayo Theatre at the age of 12, performing in front of a full house and going to the Harare International Festival of the Arts at the age of 17. HiFA as it was popularly known, used to be on the top 10 of the best festivals in the world. Performing on those two platforms at a very young age was a game changer for me. I knew this was what I was good at, I am getting to perform at these prestigious events and platforms, I must be good, I must be doing something right. So, from the time I left school I had so much hunger, I wanted this to work, this was my only opportunity to make something for myself and get to travel the world. It didn’t take long before I was traveling around Zimbabwe & I found myself in this part of the world (United Kingdom), a world I now call home…..