Some of South Africa’s biggest music stars will feature on Def Jam Africa’s “Rhythms of Zamunda: Music Inspired By Coming 2 America” album.
The soundtrack list was officially released this past weekend and boasts some of Mzansi and Africa’s biggest stars. Prince Kaybee, DJ Ganyani, Msaki, Tiwa Savage, Njelic, Nasty C, Sha Sha and Gemini Major are all joined by others.
According to Variety, when chief executive of Universal Music South Africa and sub-Saharan South Africa Sipho Dlamini visited Universal Music Group’s offices in Los Angeles in late 2019, and started catching wind of conversations about the soundtrack for “Coming 2 America”, he knew he had to find a way to get involved.
“I started emailing and contacting everybody to find out where it was landing. Soon, the team at Def Jam US worked out a collaboration with Def Jam Africa, to help curate a whole companion album to the movie’s official soundtrack, to showcase a range of African sounds and artists."
The result of those conversations is the soundtrack, “Rhythms of Zamunda: Music Inspired By Coming 2 America”, which is scheduled for release on March 5.
The publication also exclusively revealed that the album’s 16 tracks are by African artists from across the diaspora, many of whom are also signed to Universal Africa labels.
On the list is Nasty C's recently released single “Black & White” with American singer Ari Lennox, Kaybee's “Fetch Your Life” and Gemini's “Loke Loke”, as well as “Overdue” by Tellaman and Sha Sha.
Hitmaker Prince Kaybee took to Instagram to express how happy he was to see that the world is paying attention to African music.
“Glad to be part of the ’Coming 2 America’ soundtrack inspired album. THE WORLD IS WATCHING AFRICAN MUSIC. Shout-out to the fellow AFRICANS that made it on the Album,” he wrote.