CJ here to make some quality music

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Lutendo Munyai, the guitar maestro also known as CJ, has just released an album that will endear him to the hearts of many music lovers in the country.

The album, titled Gi Mi Credit, contains outstanding tracks such as Beautiful dread, Mufunwa, Good God, It's been a long time, Love, Vision in the dark, Conscious mind, The Native and Musadzi wa vho Rasta.

Munyai resides at Miluwani Tshitangwe village. He matriculated from Mphaphuli High School and is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist of note today. “I used to sing in high school during casual days, karaoke shows and in church assemblies,” he said.

His music found its roots in a Tshikona traditional music ensemble around 2000, where he was an active flutist in the school. The ensemble went on to perform as far afield as the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (now Makhanda).

“Those were the good old days, and they formed the basis of the artist in me. So, even now when I look back, I am able to see where I come from,” he said.

Munyai bought his first acoustic guitar in 2006, with a guidebook and DVD, and started to teach himself how to play the instrument. He would put records on from his uncle’s collection and strum his guitar while he sang along to the likes of Dobie Gray.

However, his current style of producing music is influenced by different genres, mainly from popular western music, such as Westlife, Backstreet Boys, Bryan Adams and Prince. His reggae music is influenced by Jamaican legends such as Bob Marley and the Wailers, Dennis Brown, Third World and Burning Spear.

“After matriculating, I went to a college in Pretoria. That was when I seriously started to write pop- and Reggae songs,” he said. “I penned songs down such as Musadzi wav ho Rasta, Let me in and So well goodbye.”

He met up with some other singers, and together they started a small group called Street Rockers. They performed at train stations and leisure parks.  

In 2012, Munyai was part of the Makhado Annual Show, where he opened the stage for artists such as Colbert Mukwevho, Donald, David Mmbi and Mizo Phyll. “There’s no looking back. I am here to make some serious quality music,” he said.

Lutendo Munyai can be followed on Facebook (Lutendo Ceejay Munyai) or contacted on Tel 065 802 1069.

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.