New album for Jazz Duka Duka

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Konanani “Jazz Duka Duka” Munyai, who last released a full-length album some five years ago, says that the love of music, his culture and tradition keep him coming back onto the musical platform with experimental sounds each time he goes to the studio.

Jazz Duka Duka is currently in the studio, recording his third album, and he is striving to inject a new feeling into his sound. “I have finished this project many times and then sat back to listen to the post-production material,” he shares. “But each time I analysed the sound and rhythm, I would go back to work on it afresh. I don't wish for my new album to sound as if it were my old work redone with a small twist on the sleeves.”

Jazz Duka Duka sounds like a perfectionist, the very gentleman he appears to be in his stylish dreadlocks, black shirt and big trademark sunglasses.

For a man who was previously known as Jazzoetry and released the first album under the same name some seven years ago, and was famously known for tracks such a Ndi do vha kwasha and Duka la hayani, the musical journey has been long and also filled with ambition and invention. “I was fusing jazz and poetry,” he said. “I understand that I am classified as a Venrap artist.”

Now the continuation of his musical journey will start in February with the promotion of his brand name, when he will be touring the district, the province and Gauteng. “We want to test the new songs to see if they are what the people out there need,” he said. “You don't just assume that everyone likes your music and then you churn out an album. What if it turns out to be a total flop?”

He stresses that he has been silent for some years while trying to assess the Venrap genre and other genres related to Venrap to see how best he could take it to another level. “I seem to have read and cracked the code,” he says slyly. “I see music as a business. I didn't enter the music industry for art's sake – I need for my artistic efforts to be rewarded with financial gains.”

Besides music, Jazz Duka Duka is a full-time businessman based in Makhado and Vleifontein. He specialises in dreadlocks, and will soon be opening a shisa-nyama and a car wash. “I want to create work for several youths,” he said.

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.