The first time Zwonaka appeared on my radar was at the beginning of the year, when he featured as our #SpotlightOn Artist for January, and since then he’s been doing some pretty amazing things.
The third single building up to his elusive debut project feels like New Year’s Eve, with chopped firework samples roaring ear-to-ear, celebratory choruses and sparkly but soft falsettos. Here, Zwonaka realises that he doesn’t have to be anybody else in order to be loved, and it’s a joyous resolution.
Titled “i don’t mind if this ends,” the young muso draws inspiration from Nina Simone’s gentle crescendos, George Benson’s guitar trills and the classic Ethio-Jazz song “Tezeta” – all woven into a post-Dilla fusion of pop, electronica and ambient.
Zwonaka is a bedroom producer at heart, and now he’s taking that a step further with the use of AI-sampling. “Accelere minouge” says Michele Poiccard in Godard’s film Breathless, when he tells Patricia to pick up the pace as they escape the police in classic New Wave melodrama. With a nifty tool called AI Voice Inference, Zwonaka not only sampled this sound bite but manipulated it to mirror the sound of his own voice.
“AI doesn’t threaten art. Nothing can. I believe the artist’s role now just takes a different form. Painters and sculptors turned to CGI and VFX, drummers turned to drum pads, engineers to programmers. We use these tools to create art and that is ever-changing. That’s how I want to use AI tools,” says Zwonaka on his production choices.
Since his move to the US, he has been able to share face-to-face conversations with artists like Sampha, Earl Sweatshirt and Tiny Habits, whilst drawing inspiration from a range of homegrown talents like Muzi and Beatenberg. But he does so on his own terms.
With tones of sparkling indie-pop and a soft synth melancholy, Zwonaka is developing his own distinct style, offering listeners a relatable and empathetic kind of intimacy. Keep your eyes on this kid, he’s going places.
