The Hip Hop African

As I have started to take an interest in the Hip-Hop scene in Zimbabwe, I came across lots of great music, rhythms, and messages. One artist that stuck out to me as particularly unique, however, is Tanto Wavie. As a kid from Atlanta, I found myself surprisingly drawn to his music and it did not take me long to figure out why. Wavie takes the now popular American style trap music, and combines it with a style of music called Sungura. This is his own unique sound that he calls Trapsu, a mixture of the two genres. Although he started making music in 2010, he just started to gain big-time popularity in 2020, and that momentum is still going as he is consistently able to garner tens of thousands of streams on songs from Youtube alone! Another very intriguing part of his artistry actually are his music videos. Unlike many artists, there is much thought put into how a story will be told with each music video. With shifts in tone, plot, and setting, Wavie is able to create beautiful harmony between the song and story being told rather than the audio and visuals combatting each other like is often done. Wavie is not afraid to embrace other parts of different cultures as well. His hit song, “007” is loosely based off of the English spy, James Bond. He has been nominated for several awards for both his videos and music in the past couple of years and there is no doubt that there will be more success for him down the line. Look for Trapsu to grow in popularity, not just in Zimbabwe, but across the entire continent.