Nox Back In Zim But….

NOX GUNI’S musical journey sounds like a movie script. At one point, he was written off and thought of quitting. But, he soldiered on and managed to fight the “demons” that haunted him for years. In a week’s time, he is launching a symbolic 20-track album meant to celebrate his milestone in the music industry thus far.

Today, H-Metro Correspondent REST MUTORE (Q) sat down with Nox Guni (NG) for the Friday Exclusives. He talks us through the ups and downs of his 20 years in the music industry, paying a lot of money to Master KG, and of course other issues. Read on . . .   

Q: Nox, welcome to Friday Exclusives. You have been in Zimbabwe for a couple of weeks now. Are you back for good?

NG: I’m not back for good but I’m back, for the good part we will see. But the main reason I’m back home is the launch of my 15th studio album happening at Steak House in Harare on September 6. The album is titled “The Love Letter” and it carries 20 songs.

Q: Why 20 songs?

NG: Because I’m celebrating 20 years in the music industry, though it’s coinciding with my birthday. That’s the reason I came to Zimbabwe, to make sure those things are done here at home, charity begins at home though it should not end there. So when I came, I didn’t come straight to Harare, I went home first, Zimbabwe is home but there is home in Zimbabwe. So I was in Zaka for the first two weeks of my stay in Zimbabwe, making sure that people at home know the narrative, and just to touch base and reconnect with the community so that wherever I go I know that I have prayers from the people that really love me.

I also went to see my mother, we are building something for her, my father is late. I also want to encourage people out there to take care of their parents. Apart from that we also have social responsibility initiatives that we are doing.

Q: Don’t you think 20 songs are too much for a single album? We have witnessed that before, musicians releasing such projects and failed to get a single hit out of it.

NG: It is too much I know but it’s symbolic, and I had to do it. It’s not about the number of songs. I’m trying to tell people a story, my story. I have had 20 years in the music industry, some of them don’t even know that, they think I started music in 2011 on Ndinonyara. That was almost 10 years after my first hit, which was song and video of the year in 2003. So it’s just me trying to tell my story in a different way.

Q: You are someone with a bias towards love. So is the album all about love, based on the title of the album?

NG: I know people think I sing love songs always, but that’s not the truth. Probably only 60 percent are love songs, the other touches other issues. They are just nice and people think that it’s love.

On this album, The Love Letter, basically is a concept of trying to get into people’s minds so that they can try to remember those days when they were sending each other love letters. That feeling back then when we had real love. So it’s an album that is not entirely about love but has connotations around the subject of love.

This album is a full package; everyone has something there. There is traditional music, afro beats but there is a new sound that I’m creating.

Q: Tell us more about the new sound.

NG: It’s a new sound called afro beats south. It’s afro beats, but it’s different in that it has a lead guitar that can only be played in Southern Africa, most songs have lead guitar remuseve. They cannot play museve in Nigeria the way we play it here. That is our original sound. So I’m trying to put that museve in Afro beats so that we can differentiate Davido from Nox. If you go to East Africa, Diamond (Platinumz) and Harmonize, all the guys in the East have their own sound. We have got Amapiano in Southern Africa but we can also do something of our own.

Q: You have touched the issue of originality. How do you think that has been a setback for Zimbabwean musicians?

NG: That has definitely affected us. If you want to do Hip-Hop, make sure you are able to stand with the best in Hip-Hop. We are so happy by calling it Zimdancehall, Zim Hip-Hop, tell me about the category of Zim Hip-Hop at MTV awards. Let’s go back to the basics and redefine our music, so that we can be able to be compared on the same platform with others. This (Zimbabwean) music is not different from what others are doing right now, we have very good hip-hop songs right here but the problem is the terminology, we need to classify it according to international standards.    

Q: So what do you think should be done?

NG: We need to tell each other the truth, that can only take this country’s music industry forward. We do not want people with money to direct where music should go, it should be organic. If Zimbabwean musicians want to be in the international space, they should do what is happening there, let’s focus real resources on people with real talent.

We should not look at Zimbabwe as the only market, also our market is small and we can’t afford to fight, let’s unite and have an organised way of doing things. There are three million people in Jamaica but they are known world over.

It’s because they have their own sound and all stakeholders, including the media play their roles. It’s not like we don’t have artists who are currently making an impact on the global stage, but we have to do more. We have greats who did it before so many years ago and we should be having many numbers at this age. 

Q: Let me take you back to the forthcoming album. Any collaborations?

NG: A lot of them, there is Iyanya from Nigeria, he is a very big artiste, the first African artiste to reach one billion followers on Tik Tok. There is Eddy Kenzo from Uganda, is like a Jah Prayzah of Uganda, to put it that way. There is Epixode from Ghana, there is lady called Gigi Lamayne, probably the best rapper in Africa, those are the continental artists that I featured. But I also featured local artists, there is Holy Ten, Micahel Magz, special mention to Tyfah Guni, my younger brother, who is a central part of production and my music. I think he deserves more recognition but I also believe in timing, his time will come, he is featuring as a producer and as an artist as well.

Q: So when should we expect the album?

NG: On the 6th of September everything goes live, the album is available for pre-save. We are also going to have physical CDs on the day of the launch. I am encouraging people to come because there is a narrative that we want people to be part of. We want people to support their own and give a glimpse of what the future looks like if we work as a unity.

I came here with the band, a live band all the way from South Africa. It’s a permanent band of six members called Ice n Roses. We also engaged a number of top local musicians who are also performing at the launch.

Q: But you are now based in South Africa, why not launch the album there?

NG: There is a saying that you can never be a king of another country if you are not a king in your own country, that’s why I am back, the king is back. I have to launch the album with the people who made me and we are going to have a countrywide tour promoting the album. For the past three years, I have been coming to Zimbabwe every two months. I have been rebuilding, I just had not to broadcast it.

Q: Now let’s talk about your career path. There was a time you went silent and some thought you had quit, what was happening?

NG: It’s a time I was focusing on personal life, getting my lessons the hard way. I was written off by everybody but God works in mysterious ways.

Q: Getting your lessons the hard way? It’s vague. Is that the period you somehow dominated newspaper front pages for wrong reasons?

NG: I’m sure I don’t even need to go back and talk about those ups and downs because everyone knows it. My life has sort of been in the public eye for the past 20 years, that has got its pros and cons. But the negative things that I experienced in my life I appreciate them because they have moulded me to be the person I’m today.

So I don’t look back and say I shouldn’t have gone through that, but I look back and thank God for making me go through all those things. Had I not gone through that, maybe I wouldn’t be understanding things the way I do now. Maybe we wouldn’t be sitting together here, being sober sense like now, so I have everything to thank God for everything. It’s been like life, my journey has been so real, my downfalls everybody was seeing them, where I was trying people were seeing. And, now everybody is seeing what I’m doing. I’m glad that I’m in a better space now, we can even talk smiling because God has been faithful.

Q: From the way you are talking, it seems you went through hell? Fighting something very strange and difficult.

NG: I need to be honest with you, my life changed when I thought I was not going to survive in this industry. I had no one to turn to but that’s when I found Jesus. That’s when I got to understand that I had to go through what I went through.

Q: Do you blame anyone for that phase?

NG: I don’t blame whoever was part of my life, they played their role, a divine role for me to be where I am today. I’m so grateful for whoever I met in the past, who contributed positively or negatively, it had to happen. I just want to say that no matter what you go through in life, never give up, as long as you believe, what you need to do first is to know your purpose and to know who gave you that talent and what you need to do.

Q: And then after that phase you made a strong comeback, what happened?

NG: It was a period of retrospect and obviously you come back strong. I had to abandon some of the ways I used to do before.

Q: You also went on to work with some big names like Master KG and DJ Tira, which also contributed to your comeback. How did you convince them?

NG: Those are some of the things that I was working on when I was in hibernation. But let me be honest with you, it’s all about money. The first collabo I did was with Master KG; it was not easy for me to do that. I had to pay a lot of money. But if you are coming from Zimbabwe you think people shouldn’t pay for collaborations. So I spent many years thinking the world owes me a favour until I realised that I have to look for money and pay and invest in myself. Luck enough I stay in the same neighbourhood with Mast KG, so when I paid, everything started flowing. I paid for one song and ended up doing two songs for free. The same with DJ Tira, we paid our money and did the song. But those two projects are the ones that opened doors for me. With other artists, especially on this album, I was coming in with a strong CV, I was coming with numbers. 

Q: Lastly Nox, ahead of your album launch, are you happy with the support the local music industry is getting?

NG: No, I feel that as musicians tiri kuregererwa, especially with the power to make decisions. We need a system that promotes local artistes in a way that no show should be done in Zimbabwe without local artistes. We should make such demands, of course these guys bring in the value and the money but they are doing it in our country. We should also have a system like the BEE they have in South Africa there, whatever it is we should have a son of the soil, zvamunenge muchiita kunana Victoria Falls (festivals) uko hatisi kufara nazvo.