Thando is a 20-year old South African RnB artist, the “New Artists of The Month” on the Apple Music New Artist Spotlight for December. She is amongst the young artists reviving RnB/Soul in the South African music industry together with Elaine, Joda kgosi, Filah lah lah and Ipeleng just to name a few.
Her influences range from Billie Eilish to Sam Smith as mentioned on her personal site. She is inspired by various genres of music including Pop, RnB/Soul, Alternative rock and more. Her debut body of work “A Force to be Reckoned With” is currently sitting on no. 4 on the Apple Music RnB/Soul charts.
1. Briefly tell us about your fondest memory of you singing as a child.
When I was 13 years old, I got one of the lead roles in my primary school musical where I played Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray. It was the first time anyone had ever really heard me sing and at the end of the show during the roll call I got a standing ovation! That will be a moment that I will cherish forever because the feeling of that moment was so overwhelming and solidified my dreams and biggest goals.
2. What was the inspiration behind “A Force to be Reckoned With?”
I wanted to create a feel-good, light-hearted project that can be enjoyed by everyone and I think ‘A Force To Be Reckoned With’ is exactly that. Majority of the EP speaks about relationships – the good, the bad, the hardships and the happy parts which I think most people can relate to. Love is a universal language and I think most people have experienced some form of love in their life, so I wanted to speak on those emotions through the EP.
3. What do you want listeners to take away from this body of work?
I want listeners to feel every word that I have sung in this EP and I want them to relate to the music and the lyrics in it. I also want listeners to have a better understanding of me as an artist in that I just love making music and to always expect the unexpected. At the end of the day, I just want everyone to enjoy this body of work and hopefully deem it worthy to live up to its title.
4. Spotify just released their unwrapped for 2020 and your music has been doing incredibly well, how does it feel knowing that all your hard work and effort is being received and recognized so much?
It is something that I still can’t quite believe. I still think it’s crazy seeing my music on platforms such as Spotify amongst my idols. The fact that it has been well received makes me so happy because I am always a little bit nervous when releasing music. It was especially nerve wrecking releasing a project because it is so early on in my career but to see the overwhelming response is such an amazing feeling and I am forever grateful to anyone and everyone that listens to my music.
5. You recently sang on a beat produced by Muzi, is he someone you would want to collaborate with?
Yes! I love Muzi’s music and the genre he does is something I have never quite tapped into so it would be really exciting to work with him! I think now that my EP is out, I am looking to collaborate with some of my favourite artists.
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