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Tonderai Zvimba, Showbiz Reporter
UP-and-coming songbird, Mimie Tarukwana, who is one of the lead singers of The Outfit Band has released a single titled Selfish which was sponsored by Nigerian singer Mr Eazi through his emPawa promotions company.
After collaborating with and performing at Ammara Brown’s “Ammartia Ignite” concert in Harare last year, Mr Eazi offered to give 10 budding Zimbabwean musicians $30 000 that would be used for the recording of their music videos.
He suggested that locals recommend names of artistes whom he must work with and among those were Mimie, Gary Mupanzure, Hillzy, Cleo, Union 5, Fusion 5 and Mangwiro.
Mimi was the only musician from Bulawayo to be selected into the top 100 emerging artistes from Africa.
She received $3 000 and has released her single titled Selfish that is available on YouTube.
In an interview, the singer said she was now putting final touches to the single’s video which she hopes to release next month.
Reflecting on the emPawa recording deal, Mimie said she was excited when she learned that she had been chosen.
“I was honoured and humbled more than anything for this opportunity. Africa has great talent and to be the only one from Bulawayo who made it onto the list was so surreal because I believe Bulawayo is the city with the most talented musicians in Zimbabwe,” Mimie said.
On how she came up with the song Selfish, she said: “Growing up, I’ve always been the ‘team player’, supportive friend but sometimes, the support or love isn’t returned. A little incident reminded me that the only person that has your best interests at heart is you, hence why I came up with this song.”
She said she worked with musician Victor Stot who assisted her with songwriting as well as Murphy Cubic who produced the song. Charlie Zimbo produced the beat.
Having started singing at the tender age of four, the 25-year-old singer who is rapper ASAPH’s younger sister said she grew up in a very musical family. Her parents sang in the church choir and Mimie would imitate her mother’s singing.
“When I was four, I’d watch my mom sing in the choir and copy what she did. I sang throughout my schooling years and I always knew music was the path I would take.”
In 2013, the songstress joined a gospel group called Creme Voices. In 2015, she became a backing vocalist for a few local gospel artistes including Lorraine Stot, Mai Mwamuka and Takesure Zamar.
“After being a backing vocalist for a couple of gospel musicians, I joined a jazz band called The Outfit as one of their lead vocalists. With this group, we’ve shared the stage with a lot of international acts like Judith Sephuma and Hugh Masekela.”
Last year, Mimie was featured in Djembe Monks’ album, Bantu Migrant.
She also released her first single titled Khetha in which she featured Reverb7.
She released a video for the song in December with the upcoming video for Selfish set to be her second music video.
For this year, she said she is working on releasing an EP (Extended Play).
“This year I’ll drop an EP and I’d love to do as much collaborations as possible with local and international artistes. In future, I want to release more music frequently and to learn how to produce music as the production and business side of music interests me very much.
“I’d also want to own a record label one day to empower emerging female artistes.”
Online Reporter