Mahachi takes Shona music to the US

Desire Ncube
RISING gospel music artiste Tatenda Mahachi has collaborated with American singer Isaac Simpson on “He Cares For You”, which will be released next month.
The young musician said he would continue working with international artistes as he seeks to realise his childhood dream of taking Shona music global.
“In all my international collaborations I have and I will continue to include Shona. I want people out there to know our language.
“Very often we sing other people’s languages in our churches, in our praise and worship teams and choirs and we do not even understand the meaning of some of the songs we sing, yet we enjoy them.
‘‘It is high time we take our own language beyond our borders and I have started the journey,” said Mahachi.
Mahachi told The Sunday Mail Religion that he met Simpson in South Africa last year where he had gone to perform alongside S’fiso Ncwane.
They agreed to work together on “He Cares For You”, which Mahachi wrote.
“(Simpson) flew here recently and we recorded the song at Eternity studios with the help of MacDonald ‘Macdee’ Chidavaenzi.
“Our wish is to launch the song next month and we want to do it in a unique way. Currently we are negotiating with all radio stations in the country, we want them to play our song at once during the launch, if we agree that at 1pm all stations should play it, this is how we are going to launch this amazing single track,” said the 21-year-old Mahachi.
Mahachi said Simpson indicated he would include the song on his forthcoming album.
Last year Mahachi collaborated with award-winning South African gospel artiste Ncwane on “Ngiyamuthanda u Jesu”.
The song was nominated for the Permican Awards as well as the Durban Gospel Awards last year.
His latest album, “Declarations”, carries the track “Tichamuona”, which is competing on Star FM Gospel Greats.
Mahachi’s albums other are “Miyedzo” (2007) and “Kure” (2010) – both produced by Clive “Mono” Mukundu.
In 2014, Mahachi released “Agare” with the track “Ndibvumbamirei”, which featured Afro-jazz musician Prudence Katomeni Mbofana. The track retained first position for 16 weeks on the Star FM Gospel Greats Show.