By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Musician, dancer and DJ Zakes Bantwini has finally released his hit single, ‘Osama’.
The song came out on Friday, 10 September, and Mzansi can’t get enough of it.
The song has been heard multiple times by users via broadcasting channels and DJ sets at live events, but was never available to the public until midnight, 10 September.
The six-minute and 49-seconds-long song has lyrics which are not of any identifiable language and cannot be interpreted.
Zakes has been showered with love from fans all across the globe who have been singing and dancing along to Osama.
Osama is just the first of many tracks fans should expect from Zakes’ upcoming album, Ghetto King.
Zakes says the record was produced at his studios in KwaZulu-Natal, alongside four young, talented artists. For Zakes, this project was all about collaboration.
“Most of my albums, about 97% of my albums I would produce and write, I would have about 3% or 5% of contributions from other people. I think with this one, I am 5%, and 95% is collaborative work.”
He explains why he decided on the name “Ghetto King”.
“I always say one thing, we were not meant to be at the ghetto; that’s not our story. We were rich in everything that you could think of. When you see luxury, that’s us; that’s Africans. We had land, we had cattle, we had everything,” Zakes begins, saying that “the story of the ghetto is not really our story. However, we’re just taking this lemon and making lemonade.”
The musician wants to take the phrase “ghetto”, along with its negative connotations, and turn it around. He says that he went with a space theme for the album cover to encourage people not to let the ideas of others limit them.