Zakes Bantwini unplugs, gives killer performance

Arriving two hours late for his unplugged session at Afro Café studios yesterday, the Wasting My Time singer made up for his tardiness with a killer performance that left the audience tapping their feet and singing along to the muso’s many hit songs.

“Unplugged sessions are important to musicians, instrumentalists and backup singers,” the renowned singer, dancer and record label owner told The Citizen newspaper. “’This is when you get to be spontaneous and your musicianship is highlighted. When in studio, you can always go back and tweak this and that and fix things, put a delay and auto-tune and then be on key, but with unplugged sessions you can’t do that. It’s just you,” he explained.

The Clap Your Hands hit-maker further went on to mention that when he performs he always tries to enjoy his performances with his band. “For us when we make music, we make music we can enjoy first, and then we perform. When we perform, we perform for ourselves. You as the audience need to come and be part of us.  When we make music, we are very selfish in that manner,” he said.  “When we perform for you, and you get bored, we will start thinking that we are not doing the right thing and our energy levels will suffer, hence we make the performance about us,” he added.

Bantwini says music means life to him and everything he owns is because of music. “I acquired everything I have, own, wear and eat through music. For me, music has really been like a mother and father. It has been life.”  He says his sound is a mixture of dance music meets African beats; “a sophisticated mixture.” Bantwini says his main goal when making music is to get people to dance without him telling them to do so, but with his music communicating that to them.

Look out for his extraordinary performance on Afro Café soon.