Rumbidzai Mhlanga, Sunday Life Reporter
MUSIC therapy is the use of music to promote and enhance good quality of life through listening and creating music. That is the approach Mzingaye Sibanda warmly known at Shoemaker used to get over using drugs.
Even though he loved music since he was young, it was after drug use when he decided to use music to send a message to the public of what he went through and what he plans for the future.
“As a kid I always liked soccer and music, my parents loved to play music when I was growing up and from singing along came the love of music. I then decided to attempt to write my own music and I did not look back but grew better and fond of the craft.
Music for me is a great way of telling a story to the masses and knowing that the message will never be lost it has a way of bringing people to an understanding no matter how different their opinions may be.
“All along I have been releasing mixtapes. I had my first solo project in 2008, it was a song called VIP Section, in 2009 I released one called Caesar Optimus Prime.
In 2012 I got to work with Willie Gates Africa in Hwange who is the founder of Music Lab Studios and that year I founded my own recording and clothing label called IIWIIS MUSIC.
In 2013 I released another one called Mzingaye. The following year it was titled Methylated Spirits. I then moved to South Africa in 2015 where I worked with different people. I then released a compilation project in 2017 called The Compilation,” he continued.
The singer shared with Sunday Life how he got hooked up in drugs and how managed to quit drugs.
“I started using drugs merely out of the fun of experimenting and experiencing different things. It was out of the curiosity of wanting to do everything, that was between 2016 and 2018 before I moved back home.
When I spent the night in the streets of Jo’burg one day with a few other guys who were into all these things I saw what they did to get the money to get a daily fix, that hit me hard and got me realising what I was getting myself into.
At that time also I discovered that I was expecting my son, that gave me more reason to stop using drugs because it affected my relationship with my family and people around me.
It also affected my job as when I was high I underperformed,” he said.
The artiste used music as therapy get over what he had put himself into and to assure his family and public that he has changed and will not go back to his old ways.
“I released my first album late last year titled Arteries, Veins and Capillaries (AVC) with 10 tracks.
The album title explains a situation when I had started using drugs, it metaphorically talks about the things I introduced into my body and blood system.
The things I introduced into my blood, which runs through arteries, veins and capillaries, it also explains that the music that I make is in me. It is in my blood.
The tracks are titled Changed, Busy, Doing more, Going long, Dear Lawd, Mambo, In my hood, No mercy, Ain’t the same and Sondela.”
@ruekushie