Encomium
Delectable Nigerian songstress, Tiwa Savage, and her South African colleague, Thandiswa Mazwai, will this weekend feature on African Voices, a 30-minute magazine programme of CNN sponsored by telecommunications giant, Globacom.
The programme focuses on Africa’s most resourceful personalities whose contributions are charting a course in the African narrative in varying aspects of life.
Globacom in a press statement released in Lagos on Friday disclosed that Tiwa Savage stormed Nigeria’s music scene in 2010 with the release of her monster hit, Kele Kele Love, which was followed in quick succession by other hit singles including Love, Love Me (3x), Without My Heart and Ife wa gbona.
The music diva was born in Lagos, Nigeria, about 37 years ago. She graduated from the University of Kent in the United Kingdom with a degree in Business Administration and Accounts, but she elected to forgo her course of study when she got an opportunity to be a back-up singer for Mary J. Blige. This singular break led her to performing for other internationally acclaimed artistes like Chaka Khan, George Michael, Emma Bunton (Spice Girls), Blu Cantrell and Kelly Clarkson. Tiwa has also collaborated with notable producers such as Black Eyed Peas drummer Keith Harris, Oak Warren Felder (Nicki Minaj, Chris Brown), Babyface among others.
South African Thandiswa Mazwai is reputed to be one of the most influential musicians in her country. A lead vocalist and songwriter of Bongo Maffin, Marzwai was raised in Soweto by journalist parents who doubled as anti-apartheid political activists.
According to her, the heavy apartheid township violence of the 1980s shaped her perspective as a musical artiste whose works also received massive inspiration from the writings of legends like Steve Biko, Frantz Fanon, Chinua Achebe and Kwame Nkuruma.
African Voices is beamed on CNN on Friday at 10.30 a.m., with repeat broadcasts at 4.30 p.m. on Saturday, and at 12.30 a.m. and 7.30 p.m. on Sunday. Further repeats come up at 11.30 a.m. on Monday and at 5.30 a.m. on Tuesday.
