NHLONIPHO’S ‘LOTTO’ GETS 160K STREAMS

MBABANE – Nhlonipho Dlamini keeps rising to the top and with his recent collaborative release, the artist’s song has reached 160 642 streams on Spotify.

The single titled ‘Lotto’, is part of the artist’s collaborative work ‘Yithi Sonkhe’ which features the likes of SA’s Robot Boy, PD Jokes, The Alpha Boyz just to name a few. Out of the seven songs on the album ‘Lotto’ currently has the most streams and it’s music video will be released this week. With over 50 000 monthly listeners, the SA-based liSwati is surely souring on foreign soil.

The single is an Amapiano infused song with catchy beats that can be married to Robot Boy’s hit single ‘Salary’, which topped charts for over five months. It’s encouraging to see some local artists dominating the world’s biggest music platforms like Spotify, which would not be possible if it was not for this digital platform’s venture into the continent. On March 4, 2022, Spotify officially kicked off its planned expansion into 38 African countries including Eswatini. There were exquisite campaign rollouts with artists from across the continent and sheer excitement on social media.

Most importantly, there was an understanding that a new chapter had opened for Africa’s music ecosystem. Before Spotify announced its entry in February, the Swedish audio streaming app, which houses over 70 million songs and 2.6 million podcasts, was previously only available in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia. It is also worth noting that Dlamini was announced as the cover of Spotify Africa along with other artists on the seven-piece-album. The artists come after the likes of the Scorpion Kings, Mafikizolo and AKA among others.

The project that led the group to get such recognition came after the release of their work ‘Yithi sonkhe’. It features about seven songs and a number of upcoming artists. The project ‘Yithi Sonkhe’, which simply translates to all of us, is a compilation of work by various unknown upcoming artists. Before the release of the song, a documentary was made that was endorsed and featured by Trace Urban. ‘‘The documentary in essence speaks about us coming together to make music that is unique to the ear and will be loved by the people,” mentioned Dlamini when reached for comment. “Yithi Sonke’ is a project that is going to inspire young people to believe in themselves. “I strongly believe in teamwork, and ‘Yithi Sonke’ is a product of that. I’m looking forward to us having more performances in different places and displaying the new sounds of the project,” said Dlamini. He has been doing well for himself over the past few months and has had the privilege to get recognition and get interviewed on Trace Urban, Channel O, and numerous talk shows on SABC1 through to SABC 3.
He has shown that through hard work and determination, one can achieve anything, even artists from Eswatini.

Choral

The artist is also a music producer, singer and pianist, born in Mankayane. He found his passion for music after being introduced to Choral music by his mother who was a teacher and Choral music conductor. Dlamini won his first solo competition in primary, and never looked back. His music has led him to work with renowned SA and international artists from the likes of Luyolo Yiba, Nathi Mankayi, Samthing Soweto and Amanda Black just to name a few. He relocated to Johannesburg back in 2015, and got a job as a lecturer in Music Theory and Keyboard Technique at Digmac Media College in Braamfontein, which he says taught him a lot of patience. In a previous interview with this publication the artist shared that working as a teacher taught him that people have different strengths and one needed to make sure that everyone in his class moved at the same pace.

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