It’s a woman’s song of reminiscence, it is of a time shared with someone she loved. As the story goes, even though it wasn’t meant to be, she tries to get him to notice her but he disregards her instead. In it, Zuva’s vocals are deep and moody yet fairly uplifting.
Zuva hauntingly channels an aura that is beyond her years; it is difficult to imagine how a then 14-year-old could pen a love song so deeply rooted in real life.
“It was inspired by watching women who constantly give love and receive none back, women who do dearly want to be noticed by the person they want and yet still disregarded, it was a personal experience,” ..said Zuva.
Silence audibly highlights the various inspirators of Zuva’s new path; Emeli Sande, Adele and as we listen more intently a fusion of English Nigerian, Sade Adu as well as German Namibian Shishani. Yes, listening to the 20-year-old Medical student’s debut, one can trace the strong influences of pre-1950s Soul,
“I fell in love with jazz when I was made to sing an Ella Fitzgerald favourite in 2016,” detailed Zuva
As a part of the award-winning choir, Note2etoN, performing Jazz and back up for Zimbabwean Percussionist and Musician Blessing Chimanga; we’re glad Zuva has decided to step into the light – pun intended.
Lyrically, Silence is quite poetic and by no means sells out that it was written by a then heartbroken teen. The somewhat Billie Holiday-esque piano acoustic passage between Jazz and Soul is quite enjoyable. In a pre-release chat, Zuva admitted the forefront is not a space she is accustomed to taking up. We can thank Blessing ‘Bled’ Chimanga for producing Silence and bringing Zuva her to the fore.
“I’ve loved music since I was younger, performing in school competitions but I never considered performing, Bled really encouraged to get out there.”
Although beautifully raw, we could tell Zuva held back just an inkling. Perhaps a good problem to have as a debuting Artist. We are all the while ready to dive into the waterfall of Soul that this new Zimbabwean ray of sunshine has to offer.
Get it, girl!
You can purchase Silence on iTunes.
