The Art of Being Zee Nxumalo

In the few years she's been active in music, Zee Nxumalo has made a serious dent in South African dance music. A vocalist extraordinaire with a rap background, she arrives on songs as though it were ordained in ancient times, swaggering over amapiano, 3-Step, lekompo and even maskandi so fluidly that the songs themselves seem to thank her for pushing them across the line. But the enduring sound of amapiano isn't how she stepped into the scene.

Back in 2022, a younger Zee Nxumalo introduced herself with the six-track KwaNxumalo EP, an Afro-pop collection in the vein of Mafikizolo, Malaika and the many Afro-pop groups and solo artists that blazed the trail she walked on before her. It was cute but not groundbreaking, sowing seeds that return to her music every so often and meet the new elements of herself that make her the exciting artist she is. 

By the time the deluxe version arrived a year later, she had met and worked with amapiano pioneers MFR Souls, and she closed the year with a standout feature for another production duo, Shakes & Les, whose "Funk 55" became one of the year's definitive hits. The song introduced her lazy flow, which sounds somewhere between unsure whether she wanted to sing at all and certain that whatever came out of her mouth would define generations to come. She rhymed "Rossimoda" with "Msotra" — how Soweto is colloquially known — and filled the space in between with supersized vocal inflections that she later revealed were there because she'd run out of words. Talk about effortless.

These two extremes — the hesitant participant and the knowing sage — are the bare bones that allow her music to travel and touch hearts, serving as a conduit for a borderless connection with listeners that lets her keep giving us more. She sat down with OkayAfrica in June to talk about her career so far, a month after the release of her collaborative EP with Dlala Thukzin, Izinja Zam: Vol. 1, a title that doubles as a nod to TKZee Family's legendary song, "Izinja Zam," proof that her music and pop culture education runs deep. Her connection with Dlala Thukzin goes back to 2024's "Ama Gear," which arrived as her momentum was gaining serious traction in the mainstream. That song, alongside her own "Ngisakuthanda," cemented her place as a new voice on the scene.

Early in the creative partnership, she struck a deal with Dlala Thukzin: she would come to the studio often, and it wouldn't matter whether anything emerged from the session. "[He] was a bigger artist than I was when we met. I've always looked up to him in that sense. He had 'iPlan.' Every time he used to call me to the studio, I'd feel so much pressure. [I thought] he was wasting money by booking flights for me. When I got there, he was like, bro, I'm also looking for your sauce. You can only imagine how the early days were; both of us were like, is this thing gonna work?" she recalls.

In the past month, in addition to being named to Forbes Africa's 30 Under 30 list, she has embarked on a multi-city tour of Australia that takes her to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane. 

We discuss the genesis of a song: the studio conditions a hit needs in order to emerge, the personal relationships she maintains with her collaborators, and how that camaraderie fuels the whole exchange. "The more effortless [the studio session is], the better. When I got the Instagram DM from [Dlala Thukzin], I had the pressure to want to compensate. By the second day, I was myself — no pressure, nothing. There was no need for me to overcompensate. The more effortless I am, the better," she says.

It was a similar situation with Shakes & Les. "I didn't know them; they didn't know me. We just happened to be in the studio together. The Uber was already outside, waiting. The beat to 'Funk 55' was very different from anything I'd heard. They were like, 'Can you please give this a try?' I literally put on the headphones, and I was freestyling the whole song. Then I left," she says.

The realization that actual motion was happening around her career freaked her out a bit, she says. "When something happens, I'm like, okay, what's next? Instead of celebrating the moment on some, yo, people are catching up to me, I was like, what are we gonna do next?!"

The “next” has been a series of bold moves in music and fashion, the budding steps of a great talent revealing her process as she discovers it. Her collaboration with clothing chain The Fix was well received, and she's planning another run. "I just do me. I do color, I do confidence, and people happen to fall in love with it. Even when we sold our merch at The Fix, I didn't expect it to do as well as it did. They launched the merch store, and I didn't even get a chance to put the word out. The next thing, we were sold out," she says.

She won Artist of the Year at the Based Music Awards this past weekend, a welcome reprieve after the disappointment she suffered earlier this year, when the Metro FM Music Awards snubbed her in all seven categories she was nominated in. She was also nominated for Best Female at the South African Dance Music Awards in 2024. "The [Metro FM Music Awards] are something that I grew up admiring; I used to watch all my idols. I don't hate them for what they did," she says.

On the question of general artificial intelligence’s encroachment on music, she is measured, careful in choosing her words. "I feel like AI will create divisions amongst musicians, because if I'm able to find a beat online, that means there's no longer a need for me to go to the studio; it means I can do the song myself,” she shares. 

“And in terms of copyright, that's when it gets tricky. But I don't think it can replace the human being. People can take prompts and try do something similar to your style, but they can never be you. Music goes a long way; it needs performances. Who's gonna perform the song?" she wonders. "It is destructive, but I don't see it destroying the artist."